Christmas morning Brayden woke up at 4 am telling Josh and I that Santa had been to our house.  I promptly had him climb in bed with us and asked him to go back to sleep for just a bit longer. :)  At 5:50 Caleb and Andrew were up and ready to open so we all got up and started in….

After opening gifts, Mom stopped by for awhile and saw all of the boys new gifts.  Then we had breakfast and Josh and Andrew took a nap. Then it was time to go to Mom and Dad’s for Christmas with the Spurlock’s!

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We were supposed to have Christmas with The Wiseman’s the next day, but some of the family was sick so we didn’t get to get together.  :(  But we did get together with Manda and her family and had pizza and opened gifts from each other. :)  (These pictures are from my camera phone and aren’t the best quality but you get the idea…)

We had a wonderful Christmas and are so bless to have such great family and friends!!!

Another Christmas has come and gone!  But it was a wonderful time spent with family and friends!!!

Barry, Molly and and the kids got home on Christmas Eve and we spent the evening at my parents house.  Emily and Blair came over and we had our Christmas with them.  We had chicken wings, shrimp, cheese ball with crackers, blueberry dip with cookies, and punch.

After dinner and opening gifts with Emily and Blair and the boys and Audrey opened their new PJ’s from Mamaw Debbie, she read Humprey’s First Christmas to the grandkids.

Then it was time to decorate some cookies for Santa!

On the way home we saw some lights in the sky that looked just like Santa’s sleigh with a red light and all.  The boys were so excited to see it!!! When we got home I read the Christmas Story from the Bible and we sprinkle the reindeer food on the front lawn.   Soon after the boys were tucked into their beds and ready for the morning to come!  Little Brayden was a bit to excited and had trouble falling asleep.  So it took Santa almost to 1:00 in the morning to visit our livingroom! Both he and Mrs. Clause were beyond tired….lol!!!!

I will post about Christmas soon.

While watching the news the other day Josh and I saw a clip piece on the big news stories from that last decade.  9-11, Katrina, and Obama topped the list of life changing events.  With tears in my eyes I asked Josh where 10 years had gone.   The last decade was a big one for Josh and I.  Our lives are not even remotely where they were in 1999!  Our biggest fear were computers crashing and the power going out when the clock struck midnight.  Little did we know!!!

Ten years ago we had been married for 3 years, Caleb wasn’t even a year old and I had all of my grandparents.  The last 10 years have held so many heart breaks for me.  In this past decade I lost my 2 grandpas and my Mamaw.  I lost my triplets to miscarriage, we lost Josh’s grandma, our first house and Josh had open heart surgery, just to name a few!

But amongst the lost we have had wonderful, great, awesome, life changing events too.  The birth of Brayden and Andrew.  The revile of God answering our prayers in our time of need.  Josh recovering  from his heart surgery in record time and doing better then we ever expected!  The addition of so many wonderful  people in our lives, like Margie and Beth.  And the reconnection with Manda, has been such a blessing!

We are nowhere close to where we were 10 years ago, but we are so much stronger in self and in faith then where we were a decade ago.  And I can’t wait to see what this next decade and God has in store for us.

Happy 2010!!!

We had fun playing with stamps from 1Love1Dream.com.  They sent us a ton of fun stamps to try out.  Including rolling stampers and self-inking Christmas stamps.  But they boys favorite stamps were the Christmas Flashing Musical Stamp.

We decided to make place cards for everyone for Christmas dinner.  Each person’s card has some fun stamp design on it.   I am sure that everyone will love them during dinner. 

Scrapbookers you have got to check out this website!   They have so much to choose from and every holiday is covered!  If you are looking from some great stamps or fun stamping kits 1Love1Dream.com is the first place you should check out!

I have a new favorite Christmas book!!!  Humphrey’s First Christmas Written and Illustrated by Carol Heyer.

This story tells us about the camel that carried the gifts from the three wise men to baby Jesus.  As Humphrey the camel is carrying the gifts he is very unhappy and complaining about being cold without a blanket.  Even after Humphrey gets a new blanket to cover his back he is still complaining about the heavy load he is carrying.  Until the make it to their destination and Humphrey gladly gives HIM his most dearest possession.

The book is beautifully illustrated!  The boys (and me) giggled out loud while reading the book, yet the true meaning of Christmas shines though!  You really need to add this book to your bookshelf too.

OK, so I sorta had to “rearrange” things for day 5 due to a scheduling conflict.  :)  Yesterday we were super busy.  We had to go shopping to pick-up a birthday gift, Josh took the boys to a birthday party, I went shopping with Manda while Josh and Caleb went shopping and mom watched Brayden and Andrew.  So, this yesterday morning we did our day 5 and yesterday afternoon we did our day 4.  A two for one special…

Only 5 days…We watched the new VeggieTales movie Saint Nicholas: A Story of Joyful Giving.  It was a really cute movie, we all loved.

Only 4 days…We made COOKIES!!! (Sorry for the lack of pictures, we baked at Mom’s and I forgot to bring the camera.)  The boys help me make Peanut Butter Kiss cookies.  They were very yummy!

On days seven and six we had a two part project.  I think this was my favorite craft project in our three years of Countdown to Christmas.   We made dough cookie cutter ornaments.  I simply mixed together * 4 cups all-purpose flour * 1 cup salt * 1 1/2 cups warm water.  Rolled into 3 balls, one for each boy, and we started rolling out the dough.  My mom was here and that really helped make things easier.  After we rolled the dough out (about 1/8 inch thick) we let the boys cut out the fun shapes.  Then I baked them at 300 degrees for about an hour.

The next night we painted the ornaments with water color paints.

I think that they turned out GREAT!!!

Andrew’s

Brayden’s

Caleb’s

Last night we had fun making a cookie Christmas tree!  I found the kit at Wal-Mart.  Super easy to do and the kids had a blast doing it.

The last few  nights I have been out at Christmas parties and Josh has been in charge of Countdown to Christmas.  Last night was CRAZY BUSY and we didn’t have time to do a long drawn out project.  So I am going to post about the last three days in one simple post, with no pictures.  SORRY, I will do better tonight when we will be doing a craft project.

Day 11 — Sunday evening, while I was helping with my Mom’s Christmas party for care group at church, Josh took the boys to look at all of the pretty Christmas lights. They were excited to see the houses lite up in all the holiday spender.

Day 10 — Monday while I was at a Celebrating Home Christmas party in Lima, with Alice, Josh read a book to the boys.   The book was called The Mouse Before Christmas by Michael Garland.  Andrew just informed me that the book was about “a mouse that wanted a hat like Santa and Santa gave him a hat that was in his sleigh and bag.  I liked the book so much!” So there you have it a book review from 4 year old Andrew!!!

Day 9 — Tuesday night I had to take Caleb to Secret Santa to do his Christmas shopping.  I then run to the store to pick up something for Caleb to take to school for a party today and get something to eat for supper.  We ate and then it was time for UpWards BB practice for Brayden and Caleb.  Caleb doesn’t get home until after 8:30 and bed time normally at 8:00.  So last night we watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, one of my favorites!  It was nice to just take the time to sit down with the boys last night and do nothing! 

Saturday was a special day, as we went to visit with Santa Clause!!!

While we waited to see Santa the boys ate cookies, drank hot coco and colored pictures.