Missouri: Christmas/New Years

I've said it a million times.  I hate living so far away from my family.  I still believe that living far away makes our times together that much more special.

Since we live so far apart, and we were all able to, we met halfway to celebrate Christmas together.  There isn't much to do in Sullivan, Missouri, so we were able to spend our time together just being together.  (:

Of course our time together started out (rather quickly) with lots of pictures being taken.

Of course, who doesn't love opening presents?!  That's always fun!  We all exchanged names, so it was fun to see what everyone came up with for the person that they chose.   The gifts were great!  We are so blessed!!

I'm telling you, it was SO nice to get to just hang out and visit!  I was so happy to just get to be there with my mom, sisters, brother-in-laws, nieces and nephew!  (And my husband and kids, of course!)  I didn't need to do anything.  I just wanted to be with them!

We saw our first snowflakes of the season (Yes, at the end of December!)while we were in Missouri and Luke couldn't have been happier!  That little guy couldn't get outside fast enough!  He wanted to "make footprints" in the snow.  Grammy was happy to take him out and Luke was able to convince Daddy to take him out again later.  Luke loves everything about being outside, no matter how hot or cold it may be!

We didn't do nothing the whole time.  We played a lot of games!  I laughed SO much and so hard!  Gosh, I love being with my family!!  We have so much fun together!

We had dinner at a local eatery.  YUM!!

See, more playing.  This is actually how we spent New Year's Eve.  What could be better?!  The people working the front desk at the hotel probably weren't thrilled that we made ourselves at home in the breakfast area, but it was so nice that we were able to spread out and hang out without being all crammed in hotel room.

And, of course, there were more pictures!

 

It is always hard to leave and drive in opposite directions, but I am so thankful that we were able to get together and have so much fun together! It was the perfect way to end 2012 and start 2013!

Christmas Day 2012

There's not a whole lot to say about Christmas at our house this year.  It was a very low key day.  We spent the entire day in our jammies.  I think Jesus would approve of us spending his birthday relaxing and being a family.  The pictures can speak for themselves.

 

We started things off reading about Jesus's birth.

Doesn't Luke look thrilled?  He woke up with a nasty cough and feeling pretty crummy.

Of course, the kids couldn't wait to open their presents.  Well...except Luke.  Yes, Luke!  He was feeling so crummy that he actually said, "I'm too exhausted to open presents!"  Seriously!  That was the first time I've ever heard anything like that on Christmas morning, and I imagine it will be the last!  Anyway, the kids were all thrilled with there new goodies!

We had our traditional waffle breakfast.

And a delicious roast beef dinner.

It was kind of nice to be able to stay at home and relax for the day.  Although, I would trade it in a heartbeat to be able to be with family and have all of the kids together!  We will get to go see most of my family in a few days and celebrate Christmas with all of them! I can't wait!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Christmas Eve

 Since Jon's birthday is on Christmas Eve, it is always his choice as to whether or not we go to the Christmas Eve service at church.  This year he opted for us to go.  I'm so glad we went! The Christmas Eve service is a low key family time where, after all of the hustle and bustle, we can come together and make sure our focus is where it needs to be.  It is a time of singing, reflecting and celebrating the birth of our Saviour.  It was so sweet to have Luke in there with us and listening to him sing "Go Tell It On The Mountain"!  It doesn't get much better than that!

Since we were all dressed decent, I demanded some pictures in front of the tree.  Our plan for Christmas day was to stay in our jammies all day, so I knew a picture wasn't going to happen then.

Several years ago a tradition began.  It never failed that the kids were begging to open "just one" Christmas present before Christmas morning.  I finally broke down and let them, but I got to choose which one they got to open.  The gift that they got to open on Christmas Eve, from then on, has always been new Christmas jammies.  I love that they have special Christmas jammies for Christmas morning.  It looks great for pictures!  (:  

Sadly, a few years ago, Ben and Abby figured out that the gift is the same every year.  I tried to deny it, but...they were on to me.

This year, I wrapped the Christmas jammies in boxes that would not give away the shape of what was inside.  Abby was disappointed that I didn't do jammies this year when she saw the size and shape of her gift box.  She was pleased when she saw what her box contained!

All ready to be tucked into bed and try to sleep through their excitement of what awaits them on Christmas morning!

Luke's Christmas Sing-A-Long

It's finally Luke's turn to have a school program!  What could be cuter than a bunch of 3 and 4 year olds singing Christmas songs?  I was super excited to see Luke on stage and see how he would handle it.

Well...I guess you can see that he really wasn't shy.

The quality of these videos is lacking a little bit, but you still get the idea.

I love it!!

Christmas Picture Photo Shoot

 I have high hopes every year to get family pictures taken.  I think it has happened once.  As it was getting down to the wire, I asked my friend, Heather (who is not a photographer), if she would be willing to snap a few simple pictures for me.  All I wanted was one picture that I could use for Christmas cards.  She was more than happy to do it!

 Getting five people to all look at the same thing, in the same direction at the same time is quite a feat...  These pictures make me laugh.

I was so excited when we got home and looked at what we had to work with.  We managed to get some great pictures!  I LOVE them!  I am going to save the one that I chose to use for our Christmas card to post later, but here are a few of my favorites.

Aren't they awesome?!

I LOVE them!

Thank you, SO much, Heather for helping us out!  What would I do without you?!

All-City Christmas Concert

The All-City Christmas concert is one of my favorite concerts of the year!  I love that all of the schools come together in one place and perform by grade level and then all together.  I look forward to this concert every year.  This year, it was nice to have both Ben and Abby performing at the same concert.

 Don't they look great!  They actually look like they might kind of like each other...

7th grade bands from both Madison and Central.

High school bands from the Mid-High and High School.
These kids were so happy to get to play together again for the first time since marching season.

I could listen to these groups perform all night!  I am such a proud momma!

Unfortunately, the video of all of the students playing together has some issues.  I can't even describe how cool it was to listen to ALL of the kids play together!  I get chills every time!

And It's Up!

 I'm still not feeling the Christmas spirit and I still didn't feel like decorating the tree.  With my foot in the state that it is in and the height of the tree, I wasn't able to get the lights on the tree.  Thankfully Ben is tall!  He did a fantastic job putting the lights on! I would love to say that it was a fun, family night of decorating the tree together, but it just didn't turn out that way.  The kiddos did the lions share of the ornament hanging.

 They did a super job!

 Luke lost interest in actually hanging the ornaments and became much more interested in playing with them.

But the job got done!

And I think it looks great!

Christmas Tree Hunting

I am really not in the Christmas spirit.  I'm not sure what it is, but I think the spring-like temperatures could have something to do with it.  As we were headed to go get our Christmas tree, the car thermometer showed that it was 71 degrees outside!  For this girl, having grown up in Michigan, that's just plain wrong!

Everyone was dressed for the weather in t-shirts, flip flops...

and even shorts!  Strange!!

Silly people!

The Grief men all had to help!  Luke wasn't going to be ok without helping!

Aren't they manly?!

It's going to be a few days until the tree gets decorated since the branches have a lot of falling into place to do.

Christmas in Hutchinson

Jon's brother and his family were making the trek from Virginia out to Hutchinson, KS for Christmas, so we headed up for a visit. The whole Grief family was together!

The cousins were all happy to finally see each other after a whole year!

Emily and Luke got winter hats from Grandma and Grandpa. Too cute! Luke LOVES his Angry Birds hat!

Luke enjoyed some quality time playing dinosaurs with his Uncle Jamie.

Ben and Nathaniel got new knives and couldn't wait to check them out!

Abby and Katie got manicure sets. I loved seeing them getting manicures from Grandma.

We played a rousing game of Headbandz! FUN!!

A fun family weekend!