Celebrating the miracle of Christmas.... Jesus and the magic of Christmas .... Santa!

Christmas time is always so crazy!  Lots of decorating, shopping, baking, traveling, partying and so on!  We are so lucky that we live close enough to our families, that we are able to wake up at our house Christmas morning and have a very low-key Christmas morning and day!  Just us and the boys, and when the weather cooperates and schedules allow ... our parents join us for a non-traditional Christmas lunch or dinner!

After going to the Christmas Eve service in Arkadelphia, we made the trip back home to Glenwood to get ready for Santa's visit!  The boys were really tired so after leaving cookies out for Santa and saying good bye to Elfie until next year, everyone went right to sleep!  Of course they were awake before the sun came up to see what the man in the "red suit" left behind!  Luckily, no coal..... only the good stuff!

Zachy's Santa Stuff:  Hermit Crabs, A Castle, & Soccer Gear

Nate's Santa Stuff:  New Bow & Arrows, Dart Board & Glow in the Dark Basketball and Net

Ben's Santa Stuff: Pillow Pet, Dino Truck, and Castle

After checking out the 3 gifts left for each kiddo by Santa (in remembrance of the fact the wise men bought Jesus 3 gifts), it was time to open gifts!!!!   The boys got lots of loot and it was so fun watching how they reacted to the different gifts! I hope that Christmas will always be magical and a time of reflection for these boys... no matter how old they get!

So after a yummy breakfast the boys spend most of the morning playing with all of their toys! 

After all of the excitement died down, and all of the wrapping paper was picked up, we celebrated the true meaning of Christmas with a birthday pie to celebrate Jesus' birthday.  This year, instead of reading the Christmas Story, we read a wonderful little book called, "God Gave Us Christmas".  I hope and pray that in the midst of all the chaos of Christmas's yet to come, my boys will always remember that without God's most precious gift to all of humanity, we would have no reason to celebrate Christmas.  Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday Jesus!

Oh yeah..... I think we stayed in our PJs all day because guess what?????? It SNOWED, and SNOWED, and SNOWED!  This meant that we didn't get to see Nana and Papa Doc on Christmas Day, which was a bummer, BUT we did have a beautiful white Christmas!

Family Christmas Celebrations

OOSTERHOUS CELEBRATION:
I think one of the best Christmas surprises we had this year, was the unexpected, unplanned, and UN-BELIEVEABLE Christmas that we got to spend with almost the entire Oosterhous family.  About two weeks before Christmas, Great Grandpa Oosterhous passed away.  Although, it wasn't entirely unexpected it was still a huge loss to the family.  Since his passing I've heard many great G.D.O. stories and his legacy will live on in his children, grand-kids and great grand-kids!  As a result of his passing we all decided to gather here the weekend before Christmas to be together and celebrate!  Grandma and Grandpa made it, as did Uncle Dan; Julie, Jim, Grae and Emmerson; and George, Alex and Meaghan!  We had a blast hanging out, visiting, eating and playing outside.  We exchanged gifts and and had an early Christmas dinner and just had a blast being together!  Makes me soooooo ready for the Fourth of July!  The boys were pretty excited about their Air Force Academy gear and of course they loved the gifts they got from grandma and grandpa!  Nate got a Nike T-shirt and Uno Attack game; Zachy got the Ninjago DSI game and a Crayola Draw Board; and Ben Ben got a Crayola Draw Board and a remote control car!

 

 

MILLS CELEBRATION:
The night before Christmas Eve day, we packed up and headed to Arkadelpia to do more celebrating with the Mills crew!  Once Rich, Jen, Molly and Matt arrived the PAR-TAY began!  We spent a lot of time playing outside and just spending time together.  Of course once everyone arrived, the kiddos wanted to open gifts!  But, like always, they had to wait until the next morning!  We finally got all of the munchkins to bed and then the next morning we all woke up and had our Mills Christmas Eve Morning, Family Christmas!  The kiddos had a blast opening all of their gifts and even more fun playing with all of the new things they got for Christmas... batman toys, clothes, shoes, over-the-door basketball goal and much more!  After the kiddos were busy with all of their new loot the adults sat around and opened their gifts!  It was another wonderful Christmas celebration.  The remainder of the day was spent playing with toys, hanging out and eating good food, including our Christmas dinner!  We finished our time together in church at the First Baptist Church Christmas Eve Service.... the perfect place to refocus and be thankful for God's most precious gift!

Then it was back to Glenwood to get ready for Santa's arrival!!

Alll things CHRISTMAS....

From "Haul out the Holly...." to "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas...." this Christmas season had it all!  I always think that I'm going to blog different entries throughout the month of December, but my blog books are evidence that more times than not, I ended up doing a January recap of the season.... so here it goes.... Christmas Season 2012, was as follows (leading up to the two family Christmas celebrations and Christmas Day):

I have gotten this "decorating thing" down to a science!  Which really means I do most of it by myself, but that is O.K. too!  After I get the preliminary decorations on the tree and all of the breakable ornaments put at the top of the tree, I call in my wrecking crew three ELVES to help me finish decorating the tree! The fire was roaring, a Christmas movie playing, and popcorn popping and three boys eagerly awaiting trimming the tree.... ummm the whole helping thing lasted 5 minutes tops!  LOL!  Oh well,  Ben enjoyed helping and I loved having my family right beside me as we put the finishing touches on the tree.

This Christmas season seemed to fly by, and before you know it, we only had a few days left to fit in our annual visit to Santa!  So one day after school, the boys and I loaded up and went to visit Santa at the Hot Springs Mall, it just wouldn't be Christmas without this photo!  I've told Nate that he will have to continue to do this until he lives for college!  Ha!  He looked at me like I was CRAZY!  Trip to Santa was followed by a yummy dinner at Chick Filet!

The boys had Christmas parties at school!  The first party I went to was at Zachy's school!  I got to eat lunch with him in the Cafeteria and then we went to his room to PAR-TAY!  It is always so much fun to watch the kids when they are around their classmates!  We love Mrs. Pedron, who also happens to be his best buddy's mom!  Lots of sugar and Dr. Pepper and then they were sent home to start Christmas Break!

Next Zac and I hightailed it over to Nate's school, where we met up with grandma and grandpa O. for Nate's Christmas musical.  The musical was in the gym and the kids did a fabulous job.  I really enjoyed this production and one of the best parts about it, is that it addressed the true Christmas Story, in a public school environment!  After it was over, the kiddos were dismissed and Nate's Christmas break was off to a good start!

Finally Ben's Christmas party!  I love the Christmas parties at the Christian School. It is so fun to watch the kiddos interact with their buddies and to visit with wonderful teachers and parents.  They do a gift exchange which is always fun to watch.  The kiddos get so excited giving AND receiving their gifts!  I have some pics of this somewhere!  Probably on a disk in Tim's deer camera out in the middle of the woods!  When I find them I'll pull them in!

And then we began CHRISTMAS BREAK 2012!  In the midst of all of the decorating and partying there was some pretty intense shopping going on and letters to Santa Clause being sent on a regular basis!  It was enough to wear this mama out; BUT I loved almost every minute of it!