Christmas Day

The Founders Inn

While PMo was here she kept the boys one night and let me and Goldie go on a date and stay the night in the Founders Inn. Since we have lived here we had heard of the Founders Inn and so we thought we would give it a shot. It is a FOUR star hotel so how could you go wrong?! They boast of their colonial decor. We walked into the room and we were assaulted by all the wallpaper. Even the ceiling was wallpapered. The room was definitely not what we expected. It was sort of like staying at your great grandmother's house. We enjoyed our time together anyway. A few other issues later I ended up with a free 50 minute massage in their spa to use some other time.

Christmas with PMo

Sladen and PMo hanging out in Kenan's castle tent!

Kenan and Sladen opening packages!

PMo and baby Sladen

PMo and her boys

Sladen enjoying his new rocket from PMo

Sladen enjoying snuggles from PMo

The tree with all the gifts from PMo under it! We had such a great visit with PMo early this month. We were very lucky that some of our family could come spend Christmas with us since we weren't able to go home this year! We are so blessed!

Were we this good this year?

The Making of a Gingerbread House

I found a Gingerbread house kit so I decided to attempt it with Kenan. We pulled it out a few days before Christmas and got to work. We didn't exactly follow the directions and we decided that we should have. A few minutes into it the roof started to slip off and in our attempt to save it we broke it right in half. So we held it together to let Kenan decorate it. He had a blast and I even let go of my control freak tendencies and let him do it the way he wanted. It was a fun morning for us all. Unfortunately it went straight to the trash when we were finished but we have the memories and the pictures.

Great Friends and Festivities

The Adults - Us, the Smith's and the Purcell's

The whole gaggle minus Sladen who was napping!

This group doesn't miss an opportunity to get together and eat delectable morsels. We had a full Christmas dinner with my folks, the Purcell's and the Smith's. It was delicious. We also took some time to play Guitar Hero World Tour and Buzz. We always have a blast when we get together. We feel so blessed to have such great friends.

Chris and baby Connor!Goldie reading to Reagan and Bella... they are so sweet. My dad is enjoying the story as well!

Putting up the Christmas Decorations

We got the tree and all the Christmas decorations up at the beginning of this month. Since we are not going to be able to go home to Texas this year we decided to decorate. Well, that and we have kids now. For several years we either didn't put up any decorations or we only decorated a small 4 foot tree. We usually go home for a couple weeks of leave and didn't really see much point in decorating our house since it would sit empty.

Christmas to me is not so much about the decorations as being with family and celebrating Christ's birth. Christmas has become so commercialized that we forget the REAL meaning of Christmas. We celebrate Jesus coming to this earth to eventually take our sin upon himself and dying on the cross for our behalf. As Pastor Eric said yesterday "We must not sing about "The First Noel" unless we can sing "What a Wonderous Cross". The message must not be lost that He came to save us. Jesus is God's gift to us.

We are so grateful that our folks are coming here to celebrate Christmas with us since we can't go home. This will, after all, be the first Christmas since Goldie and I started dating that we haven't gone home.