Pa Rum Pum Pum Pum

I love that Christmastime gives us reason to get together with friends and family. We love the Ruckers, Pierces and Popes and loved having a night altogether to celebrate Jesus' birth and enjoy each others' company!

The kids decorated gingerbread cookies...

And filled up the formal dining room table!

Such a cutie Campbell :)

We celebrated sweet Finley too :)

Eleven...that's a lot of kids!

Fun game playing

The 3 Gs are such good buddies...I love it.

White elephant meets musical chairs for our gift swap...we ended up with the Operation game and the Gs love it!

Cute baby girls...

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Kids taking pics of the grown-ups...thankful for these sweet friends :)

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And finally, my favorite arrangement of my favorite Christmas song performed by my favorite ensemble...Maymay, JP, Chris & David and the Little Drummer Boy...

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It has always been great to hear it at church, but it was even more special sitting around the Christmas tree in front of the fire with our families altogether. Good good stuff...Christmas may proceed :)

Feeling warm and fuzzy :)

An Edited Link Visit

When our BFFs moved earlier this summer, we decided that we would find a way to see each other at least once a month. Although it has technically happened so far in some fashion, our last two attempts have been thwarted a bit by sickness. At Thanksgiving, we planned a quick Massey-Link get together and were sad to have to cancel when Greer came down with a fever the night before. We weren't too worried though, knowing our big 4day hangout was coming in December. Instead the sickies hit poor Mads and 4days turned into an overnighter. Enough to get us by I suppose, but it went by way too fast!

The big kids!

First time Sam and Garner meet! He stayed in Gville when the other 3 came to meet Garner in November.
They hit it off immediately. :)

"P-pays where the feet attach!" (Aka footed pajamas :))

We had a great time making gingerbread cookies...

Matt made an army captain

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And B made a baseball player

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Nice work, daddies!

. I'm so frustrated that these pictures won't turn the right way! These are all the kids' cookies and I love how they represent them well :). Tilt a little too the right and check 'em out...

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Madi's prince and princess...pretty and neat.

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Gehrig's football player (AJ Greeeeeeen!!!) and his other guy with patterned gum drops.

And Greer's freestyle...the more candy decorations, the better!

A more finished AJ...

All in all the cookies were a fun alternative to putting together a gingerbread house with our limited time...and fun to see everyone's personalities in their works of art too :).

Next, the kids opened their presents. Greer got princess dominoes and has already worn them out playing with them so much!

Gehrig got cool Melissa & Doug wooden painting projects. He has already finished the color-by-number and loved it so much that we have gone looking for more!

And thankfully, Mads thinks "homework" is a fun Christmas present...we love these A Reason for Handwriting workbooks!

Sweet kiddos

And Garner and Sam were just happy to have each other :)

We were sad to see them go and so ready for more time again soon...a couple of Greer's pics from the morning to send us out...

Love y'all!!

3 Days of (a Watson) Christmas :)

We always miss the Watsons when they are gone for the Christmas holiday, but thankfully got to spend three nights in a row with them last week to tide us over. :)

The first night, they gave us the best Christmas gift by coming to keep all three kids for us to go to dinner and get our Christmas shopping done. It was wonderful. They are pros and the kids had an awesome time!

A little Elefun playin'

The next night, we enjoyed celebrating Christmas together with FCA. Eric got in some more great cuddle time with babyG. :)

And lastly, we continued our now three-year tradition of driving around and looking at Christmas lights together. We made some chocolate covered pretzels first :).

Heading out!

SO love y'all and thankful for your friendship!

Tired from all the activities...

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Finally, we ended the evening with some Settlers of Catan! We are excited to have friends here again to play with since we can't play as often with the Links. I can see that we're going to be trying to convince Jess to blow off dental school studying next semester!

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Love and miss y'all and see ya soon!!

Gehrig's New Thing

Cutting out dinosaurs has been replaced with cutting out football players...and he can tell you every team etc. Thanks Bebe for the poster!

Hayride

For the second year in a row, we visited the Hayride through the Life of Christ that a local church puts on. It starts in Genesis and has live scenes and narrative along the way that tell the full story of God's love and plan of redemption for us. It is wonderful and a great way to focus on the true meaning of Christmas. Sweet Gehrig buried his head in my chest during the crucifiction scene and said, "Mommy, I don't like this part!" I told him that we weren't supposed to, but that we are to be so thankful for Christ's sacrifice for us. There is nothing more that we need for Christmas!
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"Thank God for his Son - a gift too wonderful for words!" 2 Corin 9:15

A Few of His Favorite Things

His lovey, a Christmas blanket and the football...love my sweet boy.