Christmas Eve and Day

We had a great Christmas with Jen's parents this year. The fun started on Wednesday at lunch, when mom and dad met Jennifer and I in Ft. Collins for lunch and to exchange gifts. They took the presents back to Laramie for them and Uncle Bubba, and we took the presents home that were for our family. I finished throwing chips at Wal-Mart, and met up with everyone and Jim and Janet's church for a quick Christmas Eve service. Then it was back to their house for dinner and presents. Here are some of the Christmas Eve photos. Everyone was able to select one present to open that night. We had a great dinner of shrimp and salad. The adults played Nathanael's new Uno game while the kids played with their new Lego sets.

Andrew

The second grade class at Frontier had a great Christmas party! Jennifer was in charge of the games, and she came up with several really great ones! The best was a pass the "Red Nose" from one person to the other. As Andrew later exclaimed, 'It was sorta like kissing 2 girls!" They also decorated cookies and made a Christmas tree ornament. Andrew never looks like he is having very much fun, but I think way deep down inside, he really is. The other boy with him in the pic is his best friend Jamal.

Party!

Tis the season for school parties! It was a busy day yesterday as all four kids had their respective Christmas parties at school. Jennifer made it to Sarabeth's, but missed Nathanaels. I made it home from work in time for Noah and Andrews, and Jennifer ran the games for Andrews class.
Last night at AWANA, we had the "Birthday Party for Jesus," which included a really great movie and a birthday cake! Above are the pics from the boys parties.
Sarabeth's class had a sing time and several crafts. Note the really cute hats Stacy made for the class.

Wow

Check out http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/photogalleries/2008-best-science-photos/photo6.html for a complete explaination of this awesome photo. God is great, isn't He?

Borders

We gathered the family up on Tuesday night and headed to America's favorite store: Borders Books and Music. They had a Christmas party for the kids, and free goodies for the adults. Everyone really had a lot of fun. Noah worked on a scavenger hunt around the store, and scored a box of candy when he completed it. Andrew helped on the scavenger hunt, played the ball toss, had his first taste of coffee, and looked at books. Nathanael enjoyed all the activities they had: story time, writing letters to Santa, game time, ball toss, and most of all the Christmas karaoke. He LOVED the singing. It was crazy. By the end of the party, it was just Nathanael and the little groupof adults singing for everyone. Sarabeth followed Nathanael around, and even found a friend to play dolls with. It was a great night.

Sarabeth

And finally Sarabeth. Of course if you are reading this, please scroll down to the entry on cookies, and read the entire story. Then come back and enjoy the photos of sister.

Nathanael

Here are Nate Dogg's cookies. Note the large amount of green frosting he is attempting to place on the little tiny cookie.

Cookies

After the movie, we set about to bake and decorate some Christmas cookies. It was a smashing success. We had so much fun in fact, that I will need to break the blog posts down into sections for each child. It was fun and interesting to see the kid's little personality's come out as they decorated the cookies. Noah was cool and suave like a 10 year old. He only came in the kitchen once, grabbed a cookie, and dipped it in the frosting, like he was eating chips and salsa. Andrew decorated three cookies. He worked painstakingly on getting them just right. He was very proud of his cookies, and well he should be. Nathanael, well, uh, loves frosting. He even included a cookie in the decorating. I think I cut him off at cookie #6. When he decorated his last cookie for mom, he took a little more time and did a great job. Sarabeth used the frosting kinda like face paint. She was also in charge of decorating cookies for grandma and grandpa.
So, here is Andrew and his cookies.

Charlie Brown

The family headed to grandma and grandpa's house to watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on Monday night. Grandpa made a nice dinner for all of us, then we gathere around the TV and watched a 43 year old classic. As you can tell from the pictures, one of us was enjoying the show.

Awesome

A little clip from my favorite Christmas special. It is on tomorrow, Monday, at 7 PM Mountain time. I can't wait. This is what Christmas is all about. This two minute clip is the best presentation of the gospel that will appear on network television ALL YEAR. So get the kids and gather 'round.

Trees

After Nathanael's Christmas sing, we stuck around for a few minutes to walk through the Festival of Trees. It is a yearly contest of local business to decorate a Christmas tree in the most creative way possible. There were some great ones this year. The kids all had their own favorite. Here are several of them.

Christmas Sing

We were all able to attend Nathanael's Christmas sing last night at the Union Colony Civic Center. We were thrilled to be joined by Uncle Andrew and his wife Rebecca. The entire presentation lasted a whopping 14 minutes, and ran through 6 songs. It almost took us longer to find a parking space, buy tickets, and find seats. Oh well. Nathanael did great and sang his little heart out! Sorry for the blurriness of some of the pictures. My camera was acting up a little bit. It also doesn't have a real great zoom feature on it.