Christmas

What a fun Christmas! The kids were up by 6am! I heard the girls jump out of bed and say,
"Let's go check the milk and cookies!"

That was followed by excited giggles and gasps as they realized that Santa had been there!

I heard them checking out the presents, how big they were, whose name was on them. I lingered in bed for just a minute and enjoyed listening to them!

The girls finally woke Aiden up and he came out, looked at the tree and then turned to his sisters and said,

"Emma! Yi-ah! Which one is mines?"

Santa presents!
At our house Santa brings one present, and Aiden had asked for a "green measure."
He meant a green measuring tape, and of course, Santa brought him one!

My favorite gift?

A new pair of running shoes!

They were tagged,

"To Mom, From Aiden,

You can run but you can't hide!"

Later that morning we went to church.

During the worhip service Moriah played "We Three Kings" with her piano instructor and Emma sang another Christmas song. Hopefully the video of that will be coming soon!

While we were at church, Aiden took this picture of us.

We've come a long way since last Christmas morning!

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve with Ryan's parents and grandparents.

We had pizza, played games, and opened presents.

I love this picture!

Favorite Christmas Traditions

The Christmas season is my favorite time of year!

This Christmas season has been one of my favorites! Isn't God so good? Last year, although Christmas was still Christmas, and we were thankful to have Ryan home, our circumstances surrounding Christmas were the worst ever. Last Christmas season is really a blur to me. There a few memories, and times I enjoyed, but I felt as if I were going through the motions for the most part. Perhaps that's why this year was so special. I think it's also because all 3 kids were old enough to begin understanding it and to be excited about it. I know we won't have many years like this, if we have another. It won't be long and the girls will lose some of their child like wonder of Christmas. I pray they always have some wonder of Christmas, but it will soon become a more grown up wonder! So I tried hard to squeeze out every ounce of enjoyment this year! 

Here are some of our favorite Christmas traditions:

Christmas Tea

This was Emma's first year to go, and she brought along her American Girl doll, which I thought was too cute!

Here are all the Roman ladies at the Christmas Tea.

The Coleman Christmas Parade

This was Aiden's favorite entry this year!

Decorating Our Tree

Getting out our ornaments is so much fun! Ryan and I both have our childhood ornaments, and our kids get new ones each year. Here they are with their new ones for last year. The girls have a globe since we studied "Countries and Cultures" last year. Aiden has a dump truck since that was his "favorite" toy last year!

One of my favorite ornaments, this one is for our little Roman baby in heaven.

And this makes me laugh! My kids have always loved Rudolph, and they were so excited to get this lighted Rudolph. They used a paper chain for reigns, and a box lid for a sleigh. They used stuffed animals for Santa and elves. The Santa costume they had, but Emma sewed the eleves' hats!

Here's the finished prouct!

What a joy to be able to decorate our tree together this year! We had to make some changes....we did go with a small artificial tree instead of real, but we were all healthy enough to do it ourselves! Of course we couldn't help but think of our dear friends who worked quickly to get last year's tree up before I came home from the hospital!

Shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child

For many years now we have done shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. The kids have fun putting their boxes together. Emma even sewed a few items for her box this year.

The Santa House

Baking Cookies!

Christmas Movies!

Friday night is usually movie night, and in December it becomes Christmas movie night!

Some of our favorite Christmas movies to watch:

The Nativity Story

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

Miracle on 34th Street

The Muppets Christmas Carol

Christmas With a Capital C

Veggie Tales-Little Drummer Boy

Christmas Stories By The Tree

Some of our favorite books:

The Legend of the Candy Cane

Memories from the Manger

The True Night Before Christmas--a gift this year--beautiful book!!

Bear Stays up for Christmas

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

What a wonderful Christmas season it has been for us!

I'd love to hear some of your Christmas traditions!

The Weekend Update

What a week we have had! Here's why I missed last weekend's update!

• Puke! Yep, we had a stomach bug stop by the house! Aiden started around 10pm Saturday night. Is it just our house, or do these things ALWAYS start at night? When they're in bed. So the bedding needs to be changed. And pillows must be washed (or tossed out in this case!) Ugh!!
• He was up about every 20-40 minutes until 5am! I was exhausted!
• Sunday morning we stayed home from church, slept in, and started catching up on the 25 loads of laundry from the night before!
• Pump goes out! The pump for the well. Which gives us water! Which I need to do my 25 loads of laundry, wash puke pans (which were still being used!) and to wash hands! So I armed myself with hand sanitizer and 2 cans of Lysol while we waited for the pump to be fixed! Ugh!!!
• Sunday evening, pump is working and puke seems to be gone! Hallelujah!!
• Monday morning, heading out for a 7am appt--van wouldn't start! Really??
• Cancel 7am appt.
• Tuesday--van is fixed! Yay!
• Tuesday night--pump goes out again! We were told on Sunday that more work needed to be done and they would do that on Friday.
• We called to see if they could move that up!
• Wed evening--we have water again!!

By this point in the week, I was ready for the weekend!

And what a great weekend we had!

We started our Christmas week by seeing our children in various Christmas programs.

Emma had her Christmas Choir Concert (they call it a Holiday Concert, but I just can't!)

Here's her group. She is in the 2nd row, 2 in from the right.

Here's after the performance!

And this morning was our first time having all 3 of our children in the children's Christmas program at church! We won't have many of those!

The cute little boy in the red sweater, yeah, he's ours! He's singing "Away in a Manger."

He waved to me, he waved to his daddy. The little girl next to him was sitting between Aiden and another boy. Apparently Aiden wanted to breathe like a dragon on the other boy, and of course the other boy returned the dragon breathing! The little girl put her hands up in an attempt to keep the boys away from her!

Moriah's class played the Christmas story and she had the part of the angel.  She did so good, even though she was a bit nervous! 

Emma's class played and sang "We Three Kings," and "Go Tell it on the Mountain."

It was a great way to start the Christmas week!

Birthday Celebrations!

We had a wonderful Christmas together, celebrating as a family....even my sister Ang and her husband Mike were with us!  We were so glad to have Ryan home with us for Christmas! These are a few of my favorite Christmas pictures.....

Having him home for Christmas meant he was also with us for another special celebration.....our Emma girl turned 10! Double digits!! It meant so much to her to have daddy there for her birthday.  It meant so much to me to be able to share that day with him watching our little girl, and reflecting back on how life changed on that Christmas Day 10 years ago!

Here she is....blowing out the candles on her cheesecake cupcake.....

                                   
and she just realized her gift is a (new to her) i pod nano....i think she's pretty excited!

 all ready for sewing lessons with her new sewing kit!

I am pretty sure he is just wondering when he will get a cheesecake cupcake!

All weekend we were reminded of how blessed we are to be able to share these special times with our family. We have cherished each moment...even the ones when the kids were bickering or spilling juice on the carpet. I am just happy that they are still here to spill their juice...and that I am here to clean it up!

Merry Christmas!!

I just love that we are all together in this picture!! Just a few weeks ago not many people believed this would be possible! We were told Ryan would be in the hospital for months! It's not even 4 weeks since the accident and he is home! God has done some amazing healing in my husband's body. All the doctors are amazed at how quickly he has been healing.  It is a wonderful Christmas gift to be able to celebrate the birth of our Savior as a family.

Our prayer is that if you have not accepted God's most precious gift to you, the salvation that comes through His Son, Jesus Christ, that you would consider giving your life to Him today.  If you do already know Him as your Savior, we pray that you will seek to know Him even more in the coming year. 

Thank you so much for your prayers for our family. To quote my dear friend Jami, this Christmas may be different for us, but His gift remains the same. Praise God, His gift remains the same!! We are grateful for the peace that comes from serving God and accepting His gift.

Merry Christmas!

The Roman's

Oh Christmas Tree

If Michelle were totally honest, putting up a Christmas tree was the furthest thing on her mind.  When someone from the church asked her, while she was still in the hospital, if they could bring a tree, her response was, "yes, sure, whatever." 

When the church found out Michelle was being released from the hospital, they went into "turbo speed" to get the tree into the Roman's house.  Sure enough when we returned with Michelle there was a large Christmas tree sitting in the corner of the living room. 

We decided if everyone was up to it, we would decorate the tree on Saturday before Mike and I left.  Mike was determined to find Michelle's totes of Christmas ornaments and decorations.  He searched the garage, shed and even Chemloc (Ryan's work place, where they keep things in storage) .  Michelle was so exhausted she told Mike, "Just run to Dollar General and get new one's to use this year."  That wouldn't stop Mike's search; he eventually found everything he needed.  

We did everything "Roman" style; including all traditions they usually partake.  I made mugs of hot chocolate, we had Christmas music playing in the background and the girl's each picked out one of their dad's ornaments to hang on the tree first.   

 The finished product!

Looking back on that request to put up a tree and how unimportant it seemed at the time, she can't help but realize how grateful she is to have it!  She said it was soo good for the girls (and herself) to have the tree and that part of "normalcy" this time of year.  It has given them something to think about other than their current situation.  It has given them something to look forward to.  So thanks to all of those who came together to get the tree up.  Michelle, the girls and Aidan are very appreciative.