Christmas and New Years

 The dreaded Christmas photos before gifts can be opened! Because Christmas Morning fell at the same time as church, and Christmas Eve fell at the same time as the Christmas Eve Church Service, we opted to do Christmas presents on Christmas Eve Morning! As usual, we read the Christmas story, but instead of just reading Luke, we did a little study on the prophecies surrounding the coming of Christ, Simeon and Anna the prophet/ess. We also read in Hebrews about the Messiah fulfilling the purposes of God in providing salvation for those He came to save and how He is our Great High Priest; we need no other mediator between us and God except Jesus Christ. 

 

Blake is 10 years old .

Blaire and her birthday gift, Shadow- 7 years old.

Blaire has been wanting a Belle dress. I found one for her ahd she was beyond thrilled. Team that with her love of horses, and you have one very happy girl- Grandpa Ted and Nana got her a horse encyclopedia!

Aside from military history, Blake likes to read the Redwall series. Grandpa and Nana got him another 3 books for his set! This was his expression when he opened the 3rd book! He finished reading all of them in a matter of days!

"Now that I have the Belle dress, I can make Blake dance with me!"- Blaire
(as Blake runs screaming from the room to hide)

We convinced him to dance with her as part of her Christmas present. He really does love to dance, but he knew I was videoing them and performances are off at that point!

She got to have Belle hair to go with her dress for the Christmas Eve service. She and Blake recited a Bible verse with two other kids. Blake did a special reading of "The Names of Christ" while Mom played "Mary Did You Know" quietly on the piano.

Christmas Day:
We gathered up the food and headed to Mom and Dads for Christmas dinner. Joseph got to put the lights on Mom's giant tree in the shop. The kids each hung an ornament for her.
Aiden and the kids had fun playing together all evening! We adults ended up playing some card games as the evening progressed.

They enjoyed jumping on the bed.

Mom caught a rare moment of Joseph being more goofy in her presence than usual!

New Years Eve:

At a decent hour we went out front with the last of our sparklers. Joseph and Blake taped some to their new drone and sent the drone skyward. Before the sparklers went out, the drone got a wild hair, stopped responding to the controls, and went for its own drive headed south into the cow fields. Eventually it stopped but Joseph had to go for a dark night hike to find the blinking lights of the wayward drone! Not totally sure what happened, but it was quite the funny experience! Of course it was foggy out and the moon was dimmed by the clouds!
Neighbors had fireworks going, but the fog at midnight was still too thick to see them!