Wishing everyone a very happy Christmas!
We are celebrating Christmas with our family today as we'll be heading in to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa, aunts and uncles, and cousins tomorrow. My husband finished work at noon today and we gathered around the tree to open gifts. Now the kids are busy with new activities. And, I'm taking a quiet break before cooking up our Christmas treats. Every year we have a tradition of enjoying a whole smorgasbord of appetizers on Christmas Eve - chicken wings, sausage rolls, cheese puffs, steak wrapped in bacon, etc. Later we will gather round the fire and watch a movie together.
I still have stockings to stuff late this evening. Although, it's almost impossible to get the kids into bed early enough these days to keep anything a 'secret'. Tomorrow morning will be a flurry of busyness as I prepare roast potatoes to take along for our Christmas potluck. I say, 'potluck', but my Mom still insisted on preparing most of the meal herself.
I am trying to soak in every moment. Praying you find time to just take in the atmosphere and breathe a prayer of thanks to our heavenly Father. Blessings to you and yours!
Today is Neko's 2 month birthday. We have been blessed having him in our lives and in our family. He has made a huge imapact already and everyone enoys holding him througout the day. He is more awake during the day and makes a lot of little noises, plus he melts everyone he sees with his smile! Here is a picture of the baby boy!
One of our favorite family Christmas traditions is to act out the Christmas story each year. This year Neko received the favored role of Jesus. Not bad for only being two months old. Below are some photos from this years story.
The Angels
Joseph, Mary and Jesus
The wise men
We were able to do some Christmas shopping for the children thanks to the generosity of some of you - thank you so very, very much! A precious friend just came by with a lovely hot lunch for us to enjoy, giving me some extra time with my precious family - thank you, Zana! We also just got a call from some dear friends who did something amazing for us. There is a zoo not far from Greenville where they train animals for movies and things. The animals are tamer than most zoo animals, and they have ZEBRAS that will eat out of your hand. We've wanted for a long time to take Noah there, and hoped to do so this fall - but Noah was too sick. Now we can't even think about affording the tickets. Well, as a surprise, our friends called the zoo and told them a bit about Noah. We got a call this morning saying that the zoo wants to wish Noah a merry Christmas and that we can bring our WHOLE family there next week for free - and our friends can come too! I am just blown away by the generosity of people who have never met my son but want to give him the chance to meet a zebra up close and personal. PLEASE pray that he is well enough and stable enough to go. Please pray for our little friend Eithene (link in sidebar) who is HOME for Christmas but is also struggling with multiple issues at home. Little Emerson (link in sidebar) is very gravely ill and in PICU right now.
We (actually our company) "adopted" a lonely senior citizen and bought her a few simple Christmas gifts which need to be delivered after lunch. We'll be heading to my parent's in a little while for presents and fun, then we will drive around and look at lights (finally LOL) on our way home. Tomorrow morning will be the best sort of hunkering down together to enjoy being together, opening gifts, and just treasuring each other. Then we'll head to my mom's for a big Christmas dinner - Jeff is smoking some chicken (yum) and I'm sure we'll all eat more than we need to. :-) Doesn't that sound like the most lovely couple of days possible???
Please just continue to pray that Noah will hold his own and start to do better. Also please pray for joy for him today and tomorrow. He is pretty clingy because of not feeling too good. He is also convinced that he is getting "Spike the Ultra Dinosaur" which he saw and played with in the store once - it is a very expensive Fisher Price remote control dinosaur that we just couldn't possibly afford. He is getting some very nice toys and we are praying that he will be happy with them and not upset about Spike. He really truly doesn't need a Spike but we haven't been successful in explaining to him that he isn't getting it. (He is a pretty typical 3 year old with a pretty determined mindset LOL) We are just praying for a spirit of contentment and joy and excitement for him and we know that the Lord can do this for him!! We did find Spike's "little brother" for $15 but haven't decided if we are better off giving it to him and hoping that he will accept it as a smaller, more basic version of Spike - or if it will just upset him because it isn't really want he wanted - we are praying for wisdom there and know we will get it.
Timothy had a wonderful, happy 11th birthday yesterday. I have a bunch of photos of our December birthdays, cookie fun, and (will have) pictures of tonight and tomorrow. I hope to get photos and/or a slideshow up this weekend!!!
Merry Christmas to all of you dear friends.
Blessings,
Kate
Tia Linschied
Senior Editor of HSB
And Merry CHRISTmas everyone!