Christmas 2018

Well, I've really been procrastinating making a blog post about Christmas. I'm lazy, what can I say?! SO, I will just do a quick post, mainly with pictures and with a few details here and there. I had a great Christmas, and it was wonderful to spend it with my sister Sharon and her family. I'm grateful that they make the trip up from Mississippi to spend Christmas with us. Chandra and her family also spent a lot of time over here. Christian loves seeing his cousins. :)

It's really hard to get good pictures in this room, so some of them are better than others, but at least I can look back in the future and remember what was going on.

Rachel made these adorable little aprons for herself and Emi. She did it all by herself. I love how creative she is! 

Christian asked for two things for Christmas: a scooter and an orange clock to hang in his bedroom. (We have no clue where the second request came from!) He got both, but wasn't interested in smiling for the camera:

Ruby got a doll that says, "I love you."

I made Elizabeth a personalized mug from Shutterfly with pictures from her life. I wish I would've gotten a better picture of her with it, but I didn't. I'm so glad she liked it, though!

Emi gave me her gingerbread girl that she made at school, and I gave her a rock painting kit:

Sarah got a large stack of books for Christmas:

Chandra and Mom working on Christmas dinner, and Christian and Rachel painting:

One of my favorite Christmas gifts came from Sarah (she is 13, and she plays percussion in band). Sarah gave us her Christmas present one night after dinner was cleaned up. She'd previously asked everybody what their favorite Christmas song was, and she composed a medley that she entitled "Mistletoe Medley" consisting of 13 or 14 different Christmas songs. She played it on her bells (small xylophone), which she'd brought with her. It was SO sweet, and she did such a great job. Sharon said that Sarah had been working on her piece and had been practicing since October. Sarah's hard work and thoughtfulness really touched my heart, and I couldn't help but cry while she played. We convinced her to give us an encore performance a couple nights later, even though she didn't want to.