simply FOuR us: Revisiting Christmas!

Christmas is one of our favorite holidays. I would leave the tree up year round if I was aloud! We do projects, bake yummy things, sing Christmas songs November - January, read more Christmas stories than one can imagine, decorate and wrap. A few of our favorite Christmas to do's are spending time with family and celebrating the birth of our Savior! If you ask any of our children their favorite things they would say the same things. We love traditions and spending time as family but we know that God is the center of, not only Christmas but, our everyday existence. This year we were very disappointed to have to cancel Christmas with our families because of sickness but we quickly threw together a plan to still have a wonderful Christmas even though we were on lock down for close to a month! Here is a glimpse into our holiday!

Middle Sis came down with a fever of 103.5 which lasted through Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and her birthday. She enjoyed her "couch bed"! She was in full view of the Christmas tree!

One of my favorite traditions is new PJs on Christmas Eve. Our kids wear their PJs like no one I have ever seen! The nice thing is that we have only bought them Christmas Eve PJs because they have been given the rest of their PJs as gifts, hand-me-downs or great garage sale finds! When they open brand new PJs they get so excited. I hope this excitement lasts forever! Big Sis asked a few nights before Christmas Eve if we remembered the PJ tradition!

Since Middle Sis was sacked out on the couch and we couldn't go anywhere (plus we didn't have food because we were supposed to be traveling to see family), Daddy ran to the store and we threw together a festive few days in hope to take some little minds off of missing Great Grandparents, Grandparents and cousins.

Christmas Eve:

Christmas Morning:

We had my Sister's crew at our house and since 1/2 of everyone was sick our

kiddo's sacked out on the couches!

Guess who was up early...

Another tradition we do is Christmas Morning the kids wake up to find a bag of books on their beds. This year they included ABC photo albums (made through Snapfish) of each child to help with reading!

We love the Bible Story Arch Books!

Here is our breakfast Christmas morning. The Jerusalem Peace light is in the middle of the table. Our neighbor brought over a candle that was lit with a flame that was brought over from Jerusalem. There is a neat story to go with it and I thought how cool it would be to tie it in with nightly devotions. When our neighbor brought it over the kids were napping. 20 minutes later they woke up and I was telling them about this candle. Within seconds Lil Bro blew it out. It is a good thing I didn't hold the only Peace Light Flame. We went next door to relight it with the flame again! I figure that will put us out of the running to ever be in the same room as the Olympic Torch seeing that important flames are snuffed out within seconds by our family!

Everyone made fruit skewers. If you made it just right you could top it off with an apple slice to be a star!

Can't have Christmas without a birthday cake for Jesus! The cousins brought this home from the store. Funny thing is that the lady at the store misspelled Jesus and it said "Happy Birthday Jeses"!