Christmas 2012

Wow, this has been an amazing Christmas.  Honestly I was a little concerned how crazy it might be.  Six kids is a lot to take care of and I was worried we would get jealousy or complaints.  But....I am happy to report, all we received were "WOW!!!!", "THIS IS AWESOME", "THIS IS SO COOL". Every single one of our kids were genuinely happy with every gift they received.  And their smiles (and tears......I'll explain later) were priceless to me.  Here is a photo of our family at our Christmas Eve service at church (Thank you Holly R).  This year, we met at the high school football stadium. It was awesome.  I heard over 1500 people attended.  There was even FL snow (aka bubbles).  The kids loved it. And so did I.

On Dec 23rd Bills family came over to celebrate Christmas. We had a lot of fun. We ate a late lunch and then tore into the gifts.  Hope & Maggie picked up quickly and were so thankful for every gift.  Have I said how much fun it's been to watch them???  Maggie LOVES babies. And she could not get enough of baby Finn.  I was a nervous wreck with her holding him.  But she would cradle him and rock him in her lap etc. She was in heaven. I know she misses the babies in Huainan.

Christmas morning, the ONLY day of the year that I wake up before anyone else.  LOL  Of course Tiff, Abby, Jadyn & Ethan were excited and all smiles.  Hope & Maggie were grumpy and wanted to sleep.  It was only 6:20, they are all usually up by then any other day anyway. I don't know why today they would want to sleep.  LOL  It did not take long for them to wake up and get as excited as their siblings.  They found what Santa brought, opened their stockings, and then we passed out gifts and sat in a circle. They took turns opening up 1 at a time.  And they were all very patient and loved watching what the others received.

Throwing Reindeer Food Christmas Eve night

Later Christmas afternoon my family came over.  We had fun.  We ate a late lunch and then opened gifts.  It was fun watching the kids open their gifts.  Again, all of our kids were very thankful and grateful and full of smiles.

We also celebrated 4 December birthdays with my family.  Edie (my new sister-n-law) is Dec 12, Bill is Dec 14, Jadyn is Dec 15 and Daniel (my brother) is Dec 31.

We had a great Christmas.  The kids have been opening up their gifts and playing with everything.  They received a lot of art & craft kids and that has been fun.  H & M also received some school workbooks and LOVE them.

OH, the tears I mentioned earlier.....This was from Tiff. And they were HAPPY tears.  She has been wanting to go to NYC for a few years now.  At Christmas time. She wants to see the tree & ice rink etc.  Well since she will be 18 in April, and graduating in May, we figured this is the year to surprise her.  We kept telling her it's too expensive and there just is not any time.  She was so upset.  Several of her friends were going and she wished she could go.  Well, her last present she opened was her trip to NYC with her daddy.  And we got the reaction that we hoped for.  :-)  They have been there for 2 days and fly home today.  She is having the time of her life.  She had a list of things to do, and I think they are able to cross of all of them.  I'm so happy that she is happy.

Happy New Year!