At the beginning of the month I got to go help a friend after she had a baby. My mom came down from the ranch too. It was great to spend so much time with one of my dear friends and my mom. Tanner's parents were so great and watched Mariah and Chet while I was gone. I am pretty positive that they didn't miss me at all...
"Angel's story rang with glory!"
Sweet little sheepies
Picking out Grandma and Grandpa's tree.
They couldn't have been in a better place to start the Christmas season than at Grandma Crossley's. Mariah even made some angels with her Grandma that I just love. Mariah had the idea to use acorns for the heads and I think they turned out so great.
One of the Church's in our community has a live nativity that I was so excited to go to. They had camels (that were either babies or miniature, if that even exists), sheep, horses, donkeys, alpacas... It was laid out like the town of Bethlehem. There were weavers, bread makers, even Roman Soldiers.
Grandpa came down to go with us.
One of the wisemen. Chet and Mariah were pretty disappointed that there wasn't anything in their boxes.
I'm so grateful for this church in taking the time to put on this presentation so I could bring my children to learn more about the birth of the Savior.
We spent Christmas Eve in Pittsburgh. We went to the rest home to sing and visit with people there. Our friends the Fuhrimans came too.
Mariah and Chet were very serious about their roles in the little presentation. During the Christmas Bells song they were given bells to ring and we told them to walk around the people as they sang. Chet started out just fine, until people started trying to touch him. Then I could see the panic in his eyes. Chet has a little stranger danger. In the middle of the song he made eye contact with me and said, "Where's dad, mom?" I pointed to Tanner and Chet made a beeline to his dad and stuck close to him the rest of the time we were there.
Mariah on the other hand loved all the attention. She got to be a star during one of her Aunts' songs and she danced the whole song. She was spinning so much I was afraid she was going to fall over, but she switched directions enough to keep it up. At the end of the song she walked from wheelchair to wheelchair and paused in front of her "adoring fans" so they could get a good look at her. She even let one lady plant a kiss on her cheek.
We went back to Grandma and Grandpa's for dinner and Shepherd's Night.
Alex and Marie made a great Mary and Joseph.
Sheep and angels singing Silent Night.
We went home that night so we could spend Christmas morning as a family and so we could go to our church.
Our sweet little tree.
Sour Patch kids people, doesn't get much better than that.
This is one of those propeller candy things that they always have in the checkout aisle of Walmart and my kids are always admiring them. So I was pretty excited to get them.
Austin was in bed during the opening of the presents but he was pretty excited about that little book. He held it all morning while getting ready for church and kept it most of church too.
As much as I love Christmas and as much as I love Sundays, as a mother of young children I don't love the two together. But we survived and then headed home to get ready for Christmas dinner. We had the sister missionaries, some friends and Tanner's parents and sisters over. It was a wonderful night with so much good food.
We went back down to Pittsburgh on Monday night and had fun playing in the 60 degree weather at the park. Then we had Kings' Night for Family Home Evening.
In truth there were actually three kings and a queen who visited the baby Jesus.
Although I'm ready for things to slow down a little I have loved the time spent with family and spent celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.
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