Christmas 2012

We had a beautiful, snowy Christmas in Texas this year!  

Our family attended Keystone's Christmas service on Sunday morning, December 23.  Dave served in Little Campers at Keystone at two of the services on Christmas Eve; and, my parents, Emily, and Caleb attended one of those services, too.  

I was able to take Isaac to the very end of the service they were all attending as everyone was singing "Silent Night" in candlelight.  It was so beautiful & moving--at one point many people in the auditorium lifted their candles up at the exact same time.  Holding Isaac at the back of the Keystone auditorium and singing "Silent Night" together with him was one of my favorite parts of Christmas this year.  ("Silent Night" is one of the songs Isaac learned to sing pretty well this December.)  

 

After Keystone, we all went to my parent's house for Christmas Eve.  

Emma with her Great-Grandma Dolores on Christmas Eve

The two best presents I could ever ask for!

Isaac was so excited to open presents!  He was running all around before we opened gifts saying, "I'm just so excited it's Christmas" over and over again.  :)  This was the first gift he opened--definitely appropriate for my little guy.

Emma was trying to help her Papa open his new railroad atlas. 

Daddy worked on assembling Isaac's airport.

Emily and Emma

Is this how you open presents?

We spent the night at my parent's house on Christmas Eve.  My parents had such a full house with my grandma, Emily, & Caleb all being in Texas for Christmas that Dave & I ended up on the floor.  :)  

 

Isaac loved helping Emma open her pink ballerina stocking on Christmas morning.

 

 

 

It had started storming during Christmas Eve night with lots of thunder and lightening.  The meteorologists were predicting it to start snowing around noon on Christmas Day, and they were exactly right!  We really had a white Christmas!

Christmas 2012!



We had our own little family Christmas at home on Wednesday morning, December 26.   Since Emma still takes a morning nap, she was sleeping while we opened most of our presents.

 

Isaac received this Hallmark book & puppy, Jingle, from Grandma Debbie, his birth grandma who lives in Chicago.  She sent a huge box of fun presents, but Jingle is definitely Isaac's favorite!

We gave Isaac MagnaTiles--I think Dave & I have as much fun building with them as Isaac does. :)

Opening Emma's stocking and gifts when she woke up.

 

After our Christmas at our house, we took Isaac & Emma sledding on the greenbelt near our house.  Isaac went down the hill several times with Emma, but he definitely preferred sledding by himself.  We sledded until all the snow was gone from the hill.  :)

 

 

A new tradition we started this year is having Emma and Isaac exchange gifts.  A few weeks before Christmas, we took Isaac and helped him pick out a gift for Emma.  He put it in a gift bag by himself and stuffed a lot of green tissue paper around it.  :)  Every day until Christmas, Isaac asked when Emma was going to open her "shir-affe" (giraffe).  I don't have any pictures of Isaac & Emma opening their gifts to each other, but it was very sweet.  After Isaac opened his train from Emma, he ran over to her, gave her a kiss, and said, "Thank you, Emma, for my new train from you!"

How is it January 8 and I'm just now finishing this post?  Tomorrow is Dave's birthday, so it really is time to wrap up Christmas & work on Dave & Emma's birthdays.  I guess that also means it's time to take down our tree!  ;)