New Year's Eve festivites

Jeff and I are getting old. We acknowledge that fact. And we have young kids. So there's no more late new year's eves where we stand in the cold and watch the ball/strawberry/hershey kiss drop while fireworks explode in the background.

But, New Year's Eve is a great time to be able to see family, eat stromboli and play games that make you laugh harder than you normally would at an earlier hour of the day. And that's exactly what we did.

Christmas in a Nutshell

As the Christmas season comes to a close for another year, I look back at all the people and events we were able to see and do. It was a busy season, to say the least, but God has blessed us with so many people that we love (many whom we did not get to see at all), that we cannot complain about all the running and planning it takes to see everyone. With each event, we thank God for His goodness and provision for us.

As a family, we started out the Christmas events a week and a half before Christmas day with a wonderful party we were invited to by one of the partners at Jeff's law firm. It was the first year we all went, and we had such a great time. I was nervous about taking the kids (even though they were invited and encouraged to come), but they did great. Our wonderful host and hostess even included entertainment for the children and at the end of the night, all of the kids sang Christmas carols for the adults. We just missed the ice that night and awoke the next morning with a beautiful display of ice on everything outside. It shut a lot of people down, but fortunately, we only lost electricity for a few hours. (Andrew and Rachel were able to finish their trip from Arizona that day, inspite of the ice.)


On Monday, I was able to have Julie and the kids, Aunt Dee, Mom, Rachel and Andrew over for a little pre-Christmas fun. The kids received their first gifts of the season from Aunt Dee.


Later in the week, we celebrated with my Grandmother and Jeff's mom was able to come for Joost's program. And then on Saturday, we celebrated Christmas with my parents, Andrew and Rachel. The kids received a slew of gifts, and we ate Mexican. (One is only able to make and eat so many full turkey feasts, and so Mexican seemed to be a good option.)

On Sunday, we traveled to Doylestown to start our celebrations with Jeff's family. Carolyn and JD (Jeff's sister) were kind enough to put us up for the two nights we were in town. We had such a great time with them, and the kids really enjoyed their stay with their cousins (especially Joost--he really enjoyed his extended sleepover with Joshua.) Carolyn hosted the entire family (all that could come) for brunch on Christmas eve morning.In the evening, we all dressed up and went to the Christmas eve service as a family and enjoyed wine and cheese after, compli- ments of Sean and Jonelle.


Christmas morning was a lot of fun for the kids. Amazingly, we didn't hear any noise from the kids before 6:45 and even then it was only excited chatter coming from Joshua and Joost's bedroom. Jeff's mom was able to be with us Christmas morning, as well--which added to the fun.

Jeff's other sister, Beth, hosted everyone for dinner at her home on Christmas day. She did a wonderful job with the meal and the kids had a great time opening *more* gifts. It was a busy house with all seven of Grace and Joost's cousins in attendance.
We had a nice time with Jeff's family and returned to Harrisburg late Christmas night.

We were delighted to be able to see an old friend of Jeff's (who was a groomsman in our wedding) that lives in Sacramento. Allan came to our home on Thursday for dinner and I am still kicking myself for not taking a picture of him and Jeff together since we only get to see him once every five years. We had a great time catching up with him.

Of course, no Christmas is complete without visiting the Christmas tree in the capitol building, which we did on Saturday.

Christmas, in a nutshell, would not be complete without giving thanks for our Savior's birth. I am awed to think that God Himself would take on human form and humble Himself to save even me. I pray that I will hold fast to this thought as I go into a new year.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Joost's 1st Performance

Today was Joost's preschool Christmas program. The 2-4 year old classes did a great job singing for all their families. Each class was dressed as a different part of the Christmas story. Joost and his classmates were wisemen.
Joost had quite the fan club in attendance. I had to save the entire row when I arrived early, and I recieved quite a few not-so-happy looks from all the other families that wanted to sit and watch their own kids. But I held strong and all but one of us had a place to sit for the program. We were so glad that all my family could be there (including Andrew and Rachel--fresh from Arizona) and we were especially pleased that Jeff's mom could make it since she had to drive from Doylestown. She came the night before and we had a good time with her. Joost was so excited to have everyone there to support him and he did a fantastic job singing all the songs.

Just like Mommy

Things always come back in style. Or maybe kids' clothing never change. Either way, my mom went through some of my old clothing and found some outfits that are Gracie's size. Here's a picture of her wearing an outfit that I wore at her age...in 1979.

Bellefonte

This past weekend, we drove up State College way to visit a friend of mine from church who has moved there (temporarily--we hope!) to finish her doctoral studies. Lauren is a phenomenal pianist and musician. It's always wonderful to hear her play.

We decided to do something Christmasy for the visit, and she found a little town called Bellefonte that hosts a Victorian Christmas each year. It's a lovely little town with plenty of Victorian homes. The Victorian homes were really about the only thing that made it a "Victorian" Christmas--that and a few random carolers dressed in period costumes. Lauren and I decided we might not go back next year, but we're glad to have explored Bellefonte for the day.

The kids (hesitantly) visited Santa's house and inaudibly told him what they wanted for Christmas. They did enjoy the candy canes given for the effort, however.

The world's largest cookie

Last week we had dinner at the Garvin's house. Bob and Tesha are good friends of ours from church and they have 3 children. Joost and Grace have become very good friends with Jack and Emily (their two oldest).

As a special surprise for the kids,Tesha had baked the largest cookie that I've ever seen. And it was the kids job to ice and decorate it. They had a lot of fun decorating it--and even more fun eating it.

(The picture is compliments of the Garvin camera.)

In the snow with Grandpa

This winter has given us a lot of snow already. On Friday, we were glad to get a little more. Joost was excited that my dad and mom came over to visit and dad took him out in the snow to play. They went sledding and made railroad tracks in the snow. He's a good grandpa to my children and I am very thankful for him.