We have enjoyed lovely Christmas celebrations over the last several days. We are so blessed with wonderful family members and friends with whom we are sharing this beautiful season of joy.
My mom, my sister Colleen, and my nephew Carter joined us for a nice dinner on Christmas Eve followed by the Vigil Mass at our parish.
The boys awakened us promptly at 7:00am on Christmas morning. They had been up for a bit, but they managed to wait patiently until the "magic hour" of 7:00. We had a really nice time opening gifts together. Suprisingly, they went for their stockings first. Then we took turns opening one gift at a time.
The boys LOVE this "claw machine" that Santa brought.
Look what I got! ;) It's my "Being Mirrors" trademark symbol!
The long-awaited, much-hoped-for Wii DID make it into Santa's sack for the boys. They were so very excited to finally get it. They jumped around the room and did a dance on the bubble wrap after opening it.
They also received several Mario-themed gifts.
It was awesome to see them sharing their excitement.
My friend Susan came over and enjoyed watching the boys open gifts. We had a yummy breakfast together.
And then the boys spent a good part of the day doing this.....
Later in the afternoon, we headed to my mom's house for more Christmas festivity.
I surprised my sisters with old copies of some books we fondly remember from grade school. Oh, the power of Amazon! ;)
Every year my mom makes awesome pajamas for all of us! Here are the boys modeling some of theirs --
You should see the wonderful placemats and napkins she made as well! I'll try to get a post up about those soon.
We got my mom a soda machine. It carbonates water and includes lots of different flavorings to add. We had fun testing it out. I would love to get one of these!
We've had a bit of downtime this week. We've enjoyed our new toys, watched some movies, and relished the slower paced non-school schedule. We've been observing the 12 days of Christmas in some simple ways (a future post I hope).
Yesterday, we got to celebrate Christmas with my Dad and Mary. We met them for lunch and then spent the afternoon exchanging gifts.
Here's my dad with a few of his "custom decorated" golf balls!
Adam got even MORE Mario stuff!
Ray got some awesome things for his train layout: boxcars, buildings (which Mary painstakingly assembled), a history of trains poster, and this cool poster ---
Ray had a great time showing off his layout. Pappy and Mary helped assemble the figure-8 track!
Thank you so very much to all of our friends and family who have been so generous to us this Christmas! Thank you Jesus for becoming man, bringing light into our world, giving us reason for hope, and being the source of all our joy.
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