Christmas

I have been relatively absent from my computer for about a week due to many of the holiday preparations. We hosted Christmas twice, had a birthday party and then battled a short bout with a stomach virus that hit all but two of us. And, of course, celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior and remembering all that He did for us in coming as a babe in a Bethlehem stable so long ago.


Praying you all had a wonderful, peaceful Christmas yesterday. We enjoyed a special, quiet day together as a family. Nowhere to run to, nothing to plan, just togetherness and enjoying some of our traditional Christmas activities. Wanted to share some of our special moments with you all . . .


I have no idea who first connected Christmas with pickles, although various sites love to share the creative possibilities (read those here and here). Apparently a non-German tradition, despite much press to the contrary.


My sister bought us a cute little gherkin ornament a few years back and it has quickly become a treasured part of our Christmas morning.

The littles get a few extra minutes before we release the older two.

Where, oh where, can my gherkin be?


Blake working diligently to maintain pickle finding champ status.



Success! Faith earned the pickle present this year.

Then on to stockings. We don't involve Santa Clause in our Christmas focus, but we do enjoy exchanging gifts and I have fun filling stockings on Christmas Eve after the kids are in bed.

Paige and Faith are so thankful for the walkie-talkies that now enable them to have conversations from opposite ends of the couch. :-)

My beautiful princess in her new Christmas nightgown.

We spent the day relaxing and I actually spent some time folding laundry and cleaning up wrapping paper central so we could once again walk around our bedroom. I also finally got the suitcases put away . . . what a crazy couple weeks it has been! In the evening we watched Prince Caspian, which I loved and will have more to say on another post, hopefully soon.


Now we look forward to more quiet and time to get life back to normal. Another wonderful Christmas to top off a year of growth and learning to walk more closely with my King.