Thank goodness for little children who leave us reminders of what the Christmas season is really about. I found this set up of Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus being surrounded by the kid's animals today on the table.

The other day I was watching Austin play with a manger scene. He really gushes over the Baby Jesus and gives him lots of kisses. Austin kisses every picture of Jesus that he comes into contact with, he always has. While watching him this time with Baby Jesus it dawned on me, when Austin was really young we would show him pictures of Jesus so he would recognize him, but the love (ie. Kisses) Austin has for Jesus is something he came up with on his own. Austin only kisses pictures of family and Jesus. I really believe Austin knows exactly who Jesus is and it’s not because I taught him but instead because he remembers. I believe little children are still very close to our Heavenly Father and Jesus. I am so grateful for my little ones.

Visiting Cousins

The day after Christmas we went to Aaron and Joylyn's for dinner and games. The kids had so much fun together. Austin LOVED baby Thayne. He kept trying to hug and kiss him. It was a lot of fun.

Christmas

This was a really weird Christmas. Every year since I can remember I have gotten up on Christmas at 3 am sharp and all the presents are open by 6 am. This year, my internal clock once again woke me up right at 3 but this time I decided I would let everyone sleep in. We had church at 9:30 am and the kids slept in way too late for us to open presents before then. So, we really just got to see that Santa did get the kids change of address form. Santa brought Elaina a new princess bike and then we got the trike out for Austin to prevent any fighting. Grandpa Twitchell had tithing work to do after church so we had to then wait on him to open the presents. We didn't start opening presents until like 1 in the afternoon. It was so weird to have the sun up!

This year Austin was all about cars and the only thing Elaina asked for was a elephant pillow pet, but she was really excited about the bike.

After presents we got to skype Avram from Brazil. It was great seeing him!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve finally made it!

Live Nativity Scene

Tonight we were able to go see a live set up of Bethlehem and see a reenactment of the Baby Jesus story and it was really nice. They had the angel that visits the Shepherds and he was like 30 feet off the ground. Elaina was so amazed by him. The highlight of the evening for Elaina was Baby Jesus. When they were reenacting the manger scene we watched, but because of the crowd we couldn’t see very well. When it was over we took the kids over to see the live camel they had there and mean while Elaina was just throwing a fit because she wanted to see Baby Jesus. She didn’t even care about the camel a couple of feet in front of her. She had her priorities straight.

Where there's water, you'll find my kids.