Merry Christmas!

We hope that your Christmas was as nice as ours. It was a fun weekend of family, food, giving and receiving. We decided to start the day right, by giving to others before we received for ourselves. I recently heard about another family doing this on Christmas morning, from a book a lot of our friends have read recently, and decided it made sense and would be easy for us to do. We decided to go downtown and serve a hot breakfast to the homeless. I was really proud of Garrett for not complaining even once about having to wait to open his presents, even though he could see toys sticking out of his stocking. He was excited to give people food, saying, "I want to give them even more food than we have" and "I want to build them a house". Maybe Habitat for Humanity is in our future. Anyway, we made a ton of pancakes, bacon and coffee and headed downtown, praying in the car that God would lead us where we should go. We stopped at a corner where we saw a little huddle of people, asked if they needed a hot breakfast, and the Lord kept bringing people from there, until we'd completely run out. By the end, all I had for one guy, was a bottle of water and a hug. He seemed content with that. Garrett loved handing the plates to the people, and fishing out the bags of underwear, socks and food that we'd brought, as well. We got to hear a lot of stories and expand our prayer lists. I cannot think of a better Christmas morning than this one, and we plan to do it again next year. We'd love some help!

When we got back home, Ryan made a fire, and we all started opening, in Ryan's family tradition of oldest to youngest. We all got so many wonderful gifts, and the kids had a really fun time. Scout was a little sick, but she was still able to enjoy the festivities. Some of the big hits were Scout's tricycle, Garrett's scooter, Scout's puppy (a toy that barks, not the real thing), Garrett's castle (complete with dragon to eat anyone trying to enter), and, of course, all of the guns. G, Ryan, my sister, and my dad all joined in a big gun fight. It was hilarious. We wrapped up with a Christmas lunch together and calling all of our family members who weren't with us. It was a really great day!

Cold, but ready to serve!

Visiting over a hot breakfast


Scout sees the stockings!


Scout with her new bling

New castle


New puppy

A gun!

Scout trying to cheat with two hippos

Take cover!

Attack!

Trying out the new trike

Cruisin' on the new scooter