Christmas with the Griffith's!

We had a great time, although short, in Penrose. Both of Tim's siblings and their families were able to be there for Christmas. (Well, it was the week before Christmas). We enjoyed time with Tim's parents, Phil, Beth, Nathan, Ruth and all the kiddos. It was great to see everyone and meet the newest member of the Griffith's - miss Amanda Hope.

Not sure...but they were looking at something on YouTube...or shopping...

Anna and Ethan were two little peas in a pod this visit. They had loads of fun together.

Clothing is always a popular gift from Paul! The men had to pose for a picture:)

Jacob received a big croquet set...he can't wait until Spring/Summer

Grampy found a NASCAR blanket for Ethan. It's now proudly on his bed and keeps him nice a cuddly warm. It's SOOOOO soft. :) (Thanks Ken's Trading Post)

The one request to Santa from Ethan was to receive Mr. The King. He was thrilled to open this gift.

Ah the smiles!

Grampy opening his box of presents from Jesus. Each was a wrapped gift with a verse and reminder of the forever gifts from our Lord. I personally enjoyed hearing about each gift.

Time with Uncle Nathan.

Time with Aunt Ruth

All the kiddos (minus the itty bitty one, Amanda) Ethan, Anna, Lydia, Alyssa, Jacob and Mayah

Grampy was laughing so hard! The kids had tons of fun with Grampy...it all started with him reading the book "wrong" and Ethan knew what the real words were....then it just turned into a giggling silly time with the Grand kids.

More giggles! Okay kids...enough...Grampy can't laugh anymore and it's bedtime!

We always have a tractor "hay" ride. This time we sat on packages of insulation. It was more comfortable and warmer than hay.

Jacob wanted to help the big boys rearrange the garage.

Ethan "driving" the tractor

Time with Aunt Beth. Alyssa holding Amanda and Anna and Ethan listening to the story.

Grammy got out a play Nativity Set for the kids to play with. When they weren't fighting over the pieces it was a hit. :)

Jacob had fun sitting with Grampy whenever he had the chance.

The Wonder of It All!

Christmas at our House was so memorable and awesome! Please take the time to enjoy the pictures and read my "book" below. ~_~


Our Christmas Tree "after Santa came"!
My boys and their "toy" helicopter. We had to open one gift on Christmas Eve. The boys seeing if Santa ate the snack they left for him! HE DID!!!
Jacob can't wait for Spring so he can use his "bi boy bike" Uncle Guideon built it for him.

One of the many Lightning McQueen gift Ethan received.

A partial shot of the LONG table to fit all 20 of us. We had such a wonderful time together!

Jacob with one of his favorites! BoBo as he calls him, but really it's Curious George.

Another favorite. Lightning McQueen art set.

To share...this is their best "cheese" for receiving Mac to carry all their cars!

Jacob received his very own helmet...and again...can't wait to put it to use.

A new toothbrush!

Not much in the way of pictures of Tim and I...guess we were too excited for our boys! :)

Ah Christmas! What a great time of year and it's been so special this year for me as a mommy of a 1 and 3 year old. I have to jot down some of the things they've said before I lose them in my mind. Somewhere Jacob picked up the word "favorite" and says it quite clearly. Nearly every present he opened he'd say, "Oh! My favorite!" He also picked up on bebee Jesus this year and every day was so excited to look at the several nativity scenes we have and hold "bebee Jesus". We have a count down calendar and he was soooooo excited to put up the last piece, who else, "bebee Jesus". Jacob is becoming quite the little singer too. He knows most of the words, the tune and the motions I taught the boys to "Away In The Manger" and just melts my heart every time he would sing it along with Ethan and I. One school morning he was hanging out with us, rather than at a sitter, and he sat at the table and did all the motions and sang along with Ethan and Kyra. He thought he was such big stuff. Jacob has really blossomed into a little boy and I can hardly think of him as a baby anymore. He's so big and expressive in all he does now. He can give the funniest looks and has the "hang your head, stick out your bottom lip" thing down to a science. It's so hard not to laugh and I have to admit...sometimes I just can't help it. He's so funny!

Ethan has blown me away this year too. I think some of it is because this Christmas we more real to him - both spiritually and the make-believe part too. He knows beyond a shadow of a doubt what the best gift is and is proud to tell you it's Jesus. He really paid attention during the whole month to teachings in school concerning the real meaning and what certain things stand for. For example, his memory verse was Luke 2:12 and he knows it inside and out. He knows that a wreath reminds us of God's forever love and that He has no beginning and no end...just like the circle of the wreath and the fact that it's always green. It was so exciting and so fun to see him learn about how Angels told of Jesus birth and why that was and IS so significant. I think it all hit home for him more this year because he accepted Christ this year and so as a new Christian, he celebrated his first Christmas truly understanding the reason Jesus birth is so special. Along with all of that he's also had a lot of fun (and so have Tim and I) at seeing Santa, telling him what he'd like and waiting for him to arrive after he went to sleep on Christmas Eve. We left Santa an orange, granola bar and Hot Chocolate. He was very concerned that we didn't have any ginger bread men cookies to leave for him...but mommy was too worn out to bake any more cookies and so we convinced him that an orange and granola bar would be more healthy and that he'd get plenty of other cookies! We were able to visit Santa twice this year and Ethan noticed that one time Santa had a fake beard and one time he had a real beard. He left it at the observation though and didn't venture too much into it! :)
The most precious memory of Ethan this year had to be when we were at Christmas Eve service. He sang the songs as well as he could and listened to the story as best he could. He did get a bit anxious at times, but then would focus again. At one point he said, "mommy...my tummy feels funny." (It was close to dinner time), so I said, "maybe you're hungry". He said, "I think I'm just so excited... (and again I figured he'd say that he was excited for Christmas, but I was wrong), but he finished his sentence by saying, "I'm just so excited that Jesus is inside of me!". It brought tears of joy to my eyes. He is so precious and seems to be so tender in his spirit. I pray he keeps that tenderness and awe of our Lord. When we got home and had dinner, Tim did such a great job. We want to make it a tradition that whether we go to a service or not, we always have a family time on Christmas Eve. Tim read the story of Jesus birth from the Bible. Jacob wasn't too into it yet this year...but Ethan sat and listened and got so excited when Tim read Luke 2:12...(since that was Ethan's memory verse). At the end of the passage...Ethan exclaimed with great joy, "Daddy! I didn't know you had the Christmas Story there in your Bible!" "That is so cool. You have it in your Bible Mommy and you have it in your Bible Daddy." It was fun to see the light come on for him that Jesus gave us his word so that we could read it any time and learn about our Lord. He was just so genuine. Then, we all (including Jacob) sang "Away in the Manger". It was a precious time for me and I'm so proud of my boys; Tim, Ethan and Jacob. Christmas morning, Ethan sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus - totally unprompted. It was just another innocent, precious moment for me to treasure. The joy that both of the boys showed with each gift they opened was priceless and we had such a great time as a family. I was so excited for Christmas, I barely slept. In some ways, being that we spent Christmas day at home this year and both of my kids were so excited about the day...it felt like our first official Christmas as a family. It was a blast! It was precious to hear the boys try to get to sleep and when they woke up they were SO excited to run downstairs. My parents always made Christmas magical for us and I pray I can do the same for my kiddos, while keeping their eyes fixed on the true reason and the best gift - our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Tonight on our way back from Church Ethan was sounding out a word and I told him how smart he is. He said, "But Jesus is really smart mom. He's the smartest of all." Tim reminded him that God knows everything and said, "Isn't it cool that we believe in a God that knows everything? That we serve a God who doesn't have to ask a question, but He just knows?" It was such a great moment between Tim and Ethan. Ethan was genuinely excited with Tim that we serve such an amazing God.
And so...the wonder of it all....Jesus is the reason we celebrate and even my 1 and 3 year old get that! I pray that year after year that fact becomes more important and apparent to my kids, as well as Tim and myself.

What a great, memorable Christmas 2008 has been.

Visiting Santa....

We had a great day spent with Grandpa out at Buckley Air Base. Santa was set to arrive on Rudolph the Red nosed Jet! The kids could hardly wait...but they did their best.

Nathan, Michael, Lydia, Hannah and Ethan


More waiting.... Lydia, Nathan, Michael, Guideon, and Jacob

Hannah trying to keep VERY excited Ethan calm!

Ethan still anxiously awaiting Santa


Jacob's reaction to Santa coming in on the Jet! He kept saying, "Santa...Jet!"

I remember this from when I was a kid...what fun it was to share with my kiddos

You can't even see Ethan...but he is being engulfed in a hug from Santa while Acacia, Hannah and Michael look on. Jacob is in the background with the red sweater on...

Jacob was excited...but not sure about actually giving Santa a hug... Grandpa was there to help

Posing in front of one of the big jets, holding their new bearssitting with Santa, sporting their new hand made hats that were given to each kiddo

Posing with their goodie bags after they saw Santa

Ethan and Wesley....such good buddies!

Posing with Santa at the Mall. Ethan commented that this time Santa's beard looked much better. I have to agree!

First Snow Man of the season

Okay...so I uploaded these pictures and now we've had a couple more snow storms...with MUCH more snow than in these pictures. However, this one we had a lot of fun outside in because it wasn't too cold and the snow was perfect for building a snowman!!! My legs were killing me from bending over and rolling the snow into balls (later I remembered I had a snowsuit I could have worn)!! Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun.

Ethan taught Jacob how to eat snow. There wasn't really enough to make into snow ice cream, but it was okay as long as they took it off of the car and not the ground. (we do have dogs)!

Ethan eating the snow....

The next day Ethan had to make some adjustments because it was melting already and the eyes, mouth, etc were falling off.

Back to eating snow

Jacob, my little lover, kept kissing the snowman once he was done. He didn't want to leave him...but he didn't understand we couldn't bring him inside!

Here they are. Proud of their first snowman of the year. Jacob's first ever!

We're looking forward to more snowmen this year. Ethan also made some snow angels...but they didn't show up too well in this little snow. Next time we have snow we'll get out there and make some fresh snow angels and a new snowman. (I think his arms and gloves are still somewhere in the yard, now buried by more snow.