The Saturday 7

 Christmas!!!!!!! But first, some other stuff.

1. Honestly, the whole week has been pretty much just preparing for Christmas and finishing up our Advent activities. I got real lazy and didn't do much cute staging for the last few. Sunday night we attempted to make overnight cinnamon rolls, so we would have a delicious treat for the first day of Christmas break. Something went terribly wrong though, and the dough was extremely dense/did not rise at all. I think my yeast was too old. So I ended up making the non-overnight kind that morning. They were delicious anyway.

2. I decided to see how many books I could read during Christmas break. At the beginning of the week I was at 79 books for the year and I thought, "11 more to get to 100? No problem." Then I re-did the math and realized that's 21, not 11!  I read fast, but even I don't read more than one book a day. Haha. Anyway, I read 3 this week, bringing my total to 81 for the year. But I'll probably read a few more in the next few days. This was a paragraph in one of my books from this week:

My kind of guy. (Too bad he turned out to be the serial killer they were hunting the whole time. 🤦)

If you're a fan of the romance genre, make sure you read Gentleman Jim by Mimi Matthews. I devoured it this week and loved it. Again, not Christian, but definitely cleaner than most romance novels. 

3. On Tuesday we made caramel corn for our neighbors. It's my mom's secret recipe that everyone loves. The neighbors on the north side of our house run a bakery out of their home, so I was really hoping for some amazing treats (and feeling a little inadequate offering them anything I'd made! lol). Nothing yet. Maybe for new year's . . .

4. Wednesday, we did "Cookies with Cousins." 

Helping Aunt Niki make frosting

Making sure it tastes right . . .

The whole crew

Working hard

Sneaking sprinkles

Finished product (after the kids ate most of theirs). These may have mostly been done by the adults.

Goldfish break after all that hard work.

5. The kids and I spent Christmas Eve at home getting everything ready. I told them we could open presents when Justin got home because he originally thought he could work a half day. But he ended up working all day, so I had a super fun day answering, "When will Daddy be home?" 8,417 times. 

Our "Wandering Wisemen" finally found Jesus.

Every year, I try to have some kind of "spiritual application" to accompany our just-for-fun Advent activities. And pretty much every year, I fail. One year, I attempted to read through the Jesus Storybook Bible every night, but gave up after a few stories. Last year, I bought a cool magnetic Jesse Tree with magnetic ornaments and Bible passages to read every night. It went pretty well until we got to Mary and I realized it was a Catholic Jesse Tree, complete with "Bible" passages from books I definitely don't have in my Bible. But this year, I saw an idea floating around facebook about reading a chapter of Luke every day from Dec.1-24, since there are 24 chapters. And we did it! It wasn't flawless. Lucy missed most of it because she rarely graces us with her presence. We missed a couple nights here and there, then had to make up for it by reading multiple chapters some nights. I read the NLT version, but most of it was over Levi's head, and a large majority was over Lena's head. But I kept clinging to the passage that says "The Word will not return void." Regardless of how much they understood/retained, you can never go wrong with reading Scripture to your kids. 

Anyway, we read the last chapter of Luke, then dove into presents. Since we spend Christmas day with my family, and the gifts become overwhelming with all 23 of us, we do our immediate family gifts on Christmas Eve.

I'm a dope and remembered to get a pic of the tree with the presents, but not a single pic all three of my kids in front of the tree.

Lena is the best gift giver. She's been planning and making gifts for months and was so excited for everyone to open them. 💗💗💗

I'm so excited!!!! I think I've narrowed it down to Russell, Rover, or Red.

The aftermath

We actually broke tradition and didn't go to the Christmas Eve service this year. Due to Covid, seating was limited, and earlier this week, our pastor made a video saying this year's service would really minister to those who have felt lonely and isolated this year. We feel neither lonely nor isolated, so we didn't feel like we should take the seats of someone who does. (And let's be honest. No childcare + Levi in the service with us = 0 peace, quiet, or reflection for anyone.)

6. And finally, Christmas day!

Part of the Cousin Crew before the rest arrived. What a bunch of good looking kids!!

Bible reading by the Patriarch

Snuggling with the Matriarch

Being so patient waiting . . .

And then, presents!

Nova has the best reactions

Levi got a remote controlled car that was a big hit. Can you see him giggling in this pic?

It was a very dino Christmas for Nash

Watching Grandpa open the gift she made him.

Brandy crying over the handprint gift Nova made her.

Nova crying when she saw Brandy crying. Such a sweet little empath!

The rest of the fam arrived!

Cousin Crew Take 2 . . . minus Levi who refused to be in the picture. 🤦

The rest of the day consisted of doing our favorite things . . .

Playing with new toys:

Snuggling:

Smiling:

Playing cards:

And our favorite thing of all . . .eating!

Niki's amazing charcuterie board

Luke and Esther made us Thai food for lunch!

Curry and . . . pad see ew? I don't remember, but it was delicious!

It was an amazing Christmas to cap off the strangest year ever. We're so abundantly blessed!!!

7. Haven't had enough pictures? Scroll down for more!

A couple escapees going to play in the snow (barefoot 🤦)

The reason you shouldn't trace photographs. Hahahahaha.

Earlier in the week, Lena came up with the idea to do a "Christmas program" for us. She roped Levi in, and presented us with this hilarious rendition of the Christmas Story:

🥰

Levi opened this Thomas track set from us on Christmas Eve. He loved it so much that he asked Justin to take him home from Niki's on Christmas afternoon so he could play with it. He played for an hour straight, then said, "I'm ready to go back to Niki's!" (The perks of living a mile apart!) He's played with it for hours today too!