It's Christmas!

Oh what a day!  So blessed to be able to celebrate Jesus' birth.  I don't know if He envisioned us laying around in our pjs all day as the way to celebrate Him, but that sure is what we did.  And it felt great!  We've all been under the weather for over a week now, so this day was much, much needed.  Lindsey was the first to come into our room about 7:45am.  At first I didn't even think she remembered it was Christmas because she didn't have any look of excitement on her face, but then she said, "Mommy, I didn't really think Santa would come, but he did, he really did!"  Then she started jumping up and down.  Whitney was still asleep so we had Lindsey go get her, then it was game on!  So much fun watching them get excited and be excited.  By far the best part was them loving on each other for the gifts they got each other.  They both claimed those were their favorite gifts of the day.  I think they ate candy all day long.  Not kidding.  Ben and I were too tired and lax to even care.  They played with their toys all day, then we all watched "Home Alone."  The girls cracked up!  Super day!  I wish everyday could be like that...

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve church is probably one of my favorite church services of the year.  It's so calm and peaceful.  I love how it truely prepares your heart for the real meaning of Christmas.  If you let it.  I struggled with that this year.  Knowing things hadn't gone the way I envisioned, knowing I still had a ton of work ahead of me that night...overall I was a grump.  And I hate it.  Lessons to be learned and changes to be made for the next time.  My sweet girls looked beautiful regardless.  And my hubby helped me get all the stuff done.  Lucky to have him by my side.

Cookies and milk for Santa

Grandpa's Birthday

We celbrated my dad's 58th birthday Sunday after the game.  His birthday is the day after Christmas so we like to try to make as big a deal as you can about his birthday since it's so close to Christmas.  Nothing says birthday like a big old brownie sundae and a "survival" book!

Panthers vs. Oakland

We won the last home game of the year!  Ben wanted a picture of all of us in his uniform so the girls came with me and we got to go onto the field before the game to get the picture.  I sure hope they look back on these pictures and realize how fortunate they were to do some of the things they have gotten to do.  Hopefully they'll have some recollection.  At any rate, we sure have gotten to do some pretty cool things because of football. It's hard to believe that nine years is almost in the books.  One more game in New Orleans, then we'll be heading back home to Georgia.  And then who knows what will be next!

Celebrating Christmas #1 and #2

We had a whole lot of busy fun over the weekend celebrating Christmas with family.  On Friday we had Christmas with Ben's parents and Abby and Easton.  The girls loved playing with Easton.  And we loved seeing Easton play with them.  There was lots of spoiling going on!

Saturday we celebrated with my parents and Rande and Meghan.  It's been awhile since all of us have had Christmas together so it was a special time for us.  There was lots of spoiling going on here too!

Rande was trying out the RC cars for the first time.  Lots of laughs there!

The girls watching with Aunt Meg

House Update

So, even though we are not back in Georgia yet, Ben told the builder he could start framing the basement and do the sub-floor.  That's it though, until we get back on January 1.  Thankfully our friends have been sending us "stalker reports" so we can see the progress.  All this was done in a week.  It feels a little scary now.  Just a little though.