Shhhhhh!!

Welcome to 2009 everyone! I am sitting on a cold hard floor in a dark hotel room. It's 9am and the boys are sleeping on the bed and I don't want to disturb them. I thought I would start to update on our holiday happenings but I will first ask for you to pray for my precious boy. Once again he hasn't been sleeping well. He is really congested and we are pretty sure he is running a fever but our expensive thermometer at home isn't working!?? Errr... and currently we are out of town so we aren't real sure what is going on with him. He has a Dr. appt. on the 6th to have his ears looked at again and I have a sneaky suspicion that he still has his ear infection. I am worried that it's the same one since October which isn't good. :( I will keep you posted in the mean time I appreciate your prayers for healing, comfort, and rest for my boy. Thanks.

As far as holiday happenings they have been like most everyone elses. BUSY!! :) My darling little sister lives in the cities and because we celebrate early with my dad and stepmom she joins us for Christmas Eve and Christmas every year for the last few years. I love it!! :) This year she came over on Christmas eve in the afternoon and helped watch Brodes while I was baking a ham. That night was the cooking and the cleaning was done we hung out and watched elf. :) That was fun. Christmas morning was a bunch of hustle and bustle. I made french toast strata for breakfast, made a pie, we opened a few presents and we were out the door by 11am. On to the in-laws!! :) We were the first to arrive and our nephew who had to leave for collage was close to running out the door. We got there in time to give him his present and hugs goodbye. It was a really fun time. The kids were playing video games, pool, and Brodes was the master of the stairs at this four level split home. :) Brody is a little behind in conquering the stairs because we haven't had stairs in our house so it's been a bit of a process. Soon though he is going to be running up and down them, it's coming sooner then I want it to. After we stuffed ourselves like Turkeys we turned around went home and Brody had a few gifts left to open. He is hilarious. He didn't quite get the idea that you rip the wrapping paper, he would bring me his present and wiggle and bounce with excitement until I opened it. I would try to start the paper for him and then help him rip it but he still wasn't quite getting it. Honestly it's like he got so excited that he couldn't allow himself to process what he needed to do he just wanted mommy to do it so he could see what was inside.

Christmas has been really so much fun this year. We have started some traditions that I hope that will stick and some that we want to do next year.

First of all I shared with you all that we went to the Live Nativity. We will do this every year as long as there is a Nativity within a reasonable distance. I love this one, it's probably my favorite.

I found two Christmas books that i really like and outside of reading the Bible story we are going to read another Christmas story every year before gift opening. The book will only be read at this time of year and hopefully it will be something that our kids will look forward to. ( I say kids only because we hope that we will get to have at least one more. :) We will see what God has planned for us.

I make a fun yummy breakfast every year for Christmas and this starts off our day.

Someone shared with me that they have a tradition of giving their children 3 gifts like the wisemen brought 3 gifts to Jesus. I think that this is such a great idea because you can tie the gift giving back to Jesus and keep it under control. :)

There is a bit more then a stirring going on from the boys and I have to run. Post pictures later.