Just wanted to wish all of you out there a Happy New Year, and hope your winter Holidays were as lovely as ours were. We spent Keane’s birthday weekend and most of Christmas week in Ohio celebrating with his family there, and Micah & Lizzie who flew in from New York City for the holiday. It was SO great to see them again. We are so blessed to have family we enjoy spending time with and that are close enough to do so. It was wonderful to spend a little time with my nieces and nephews, Conan’s mom, and Great-Grandma Holben.  We enjoyed many late nights playing games, sipping hot cocoa with TimTams, and eating all kinds of delicious food.

Always a highlight for me is the Christmas Eve celebration at Conan’s house, most particularly the Nativity. All the cousins get together and dress in costumes and act out the story of our Savior’s birth while it is read from the Bible. Now, it’s amazing how with all the giggles, wiggles, and antics of our children, it always manages to be a very spiritual experience for me, and I love it. Here are some pictures of this year’s re-enactment:

 The kids got out a few pre-performance wiggles by repeatedly sliding down Grandma’s staircase onto a pile of blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals below. She made it clear it was not an activity to be repeated at any time in the future, but the kids were just having so much fun, it was a delight to hear their excitement and joy at toppling over one another. Even Keane and Kennedy got into the act!

My youngest two were totally uninterested in the costuming idea, but very curious about the whole thing. And despite the fact that Simon as baby Jesus somehow ended up looking like a sacrificial lamb, I was amazed at how a few words from Grandma Heiselt could transform a crowd of giggling Sillies into a sweet depiction of that Holy Night. 

Christmas was, admittedly, a little harried for me this year. I missed my traditional Black Friday run, on account of being in the middle of nowhere at Thanksgiving (with my wonderful family, however, so who could complain?) where I normally have all my Christmas shopping done before 9am and am free to enjoy the rest of the holiday with friends and family. Though this year I did finally give gifts I knew my children wanted… not just stuff I thought they should have. Part of that’s because they’re older and have stronger preferences than in times past, and part of that is because I’ve grown up and realized that it’s okay to buy toys for my kids. Until now I’ve seriously bought maybe five things that weren’t books. Total. And most of those were basically giant pillows they sleep with, so hardly really qualify as toys.  Here were some of their favorites this year:

 Neils’ two favorites were the much longed-for and requested DS (the new version of a Gameboy). We bought a re-furbished one at a very reduced cost, and a Sonic game to go with it. He was so thrilled! And Grandma Lovelady bought him a set of TinkerToys. Yes, they still make those! I think his Dad and I were at least as excited as he was…

Burke also loved his construction set, which was the Kid K’nex. Just perfect for his level of dexterity and such, though he was also fascinated by the started set of big kid K’nex that came with it. He loved watching his uncle Micah build cool stuff then playing with it/destroying it. What can I say? He’s three.  He also loved his basketball hoop, though we got no photos to prove it. We’re still working on the perfect spot for it at our house, but the main living area with no purpose currently has served as a good basketball court so far. 

 We have no pictures of it, but Keane got a cool jungle play set that has a hippo, monkeys, and some other stuff that goes with it, that also shoots little bat discs. He also got a cool camper car thing from Grandma Lovelady with all his favorite Sesame Street characters inside. He LOVES Elmo. It’s awesome. 

Here’s me with one of my favorite gifts, a nice pink bag with butterflies on it. My boys picked it out for me and I love it. It’s to keep all my knitting safe. From them, oddly enough… I had a great time sharing my love of knitting with Lacy, though with all the fun Christmas distractions, I wouldn’t exactly say I taught her much. Maybe another time.

As much as we LOVED spending time with Conan’s siblings and all the fun cousins… next year we are SO totally staying at home. Maybe we’ll arrange to visit family after the holidays, or before, like our visit to Indiana this year… I just feel like the spirit of Christmas was lacking this year, and we adopted a family and did some giving and such, it was just so harried and rushed I missed out on those sweet calm evenings with my own little family.