merry CHRISTmas!

christmas was super fun this year! especially now that both the kids are old enough to enjoy the thrill of opening presents. derek does such a great job of being the man of the house on christmas morning…he gets up before all of us, gets the fire going, coffee brewing, praise music and jesus pic in place (no joke, this year he had the laptop set up with jesus’ bright and shining face waiting for us when we woke up), casserole out and oven pre-heated, bible story prepped and everything ready to go…and then he rings his little santa bell that his dad used to ring when he was little letting the kids know it’s safe to come out. rowan and rigby were in bed with me by the time derek got to the bell ringing and rowan jumped out of bed and asked “what’s that mommy?” all excitedly. i look forward to the future years when the kids know what it is and wait for it…

the kids got too many gifts this year – seriously – too many. i think next year we might try something different…although i’m not sure what just yet. that’s going to take some serious thought and prayer. we want our kids to enjoy all of christmas, but i don’t want them to lose sight of the real meaning. the REAL meaning. i keep thinking back about how much focus we all put on gifts and buying just the right thoughtful/wonderful gift for someone…which is a good thing. but how much time do we actually sit and ponder and glory in our Lord? how much did I do that or did we do that as a family??? i’m guessing the one outweighs the other by hours/days to just mere minutes. and that just breaks my heart. it makes me want to re-evaluate my whole life. seriously.

here is some of the awesome-ness we enjoyed at christmas this year 🙂