Christmas 2012

One of the Christmas presents I gave Jeremy was a blog book.  It is awesome!  It is our entire blog in book form, with a hard cover, complete with pictures and posts.  I'm so excited for this resource and it inspires me to begin blogging again.   We love that we have a sort of family journal that we can hold in our hands and turn the pages.  Last night, on Christmas, the kids took turns picking out certain posts to read aloud to everyone...a walk down Memory Lane.

A favorite Christmas tradition is to give the kids new jammies that they open on Christmas Eve.

Each year the kids draw names among themselves. This year was different, though, because since they worked this summer, everyone had their own money with which to shop!

Josiah got Anna a Fur Real Pet.

Isaac got Ryley a cable for his guitar/amp and a hat (not shown).

Ryley got Isaac a Nerf gun and table-top pinball game.

Anna got Josiah a North Face Hoodie.

One of Anna's favorite presents is her Own! Pink! Bb gun!

This was the first Christmas that the kids had their very own, hard-earned money to spend on others.  It made for an incredibly special time for our family.  I loved hearing them discuss how excited they were for someone to open a present and be so surprised.  They didn't focus on what was under the tree for them.  Each person was able to experience the full joy of giving and receiving.  It seemed to be a much richer experience.

And LOOK!  They got each of us some COOL presents!  They all did seriously awesome in this regard.  They bargain-hunted, coupon-clipped and placed bids to get exactly what they'd chosen for us, even buying not-too-matchy sweatshirts for mom and dad.