Christmas festivities

Our Christmas started this year with the traditional Hoenes festivities. We had a delicious lunch, performed the nativity, and opened presents. It really didn't seem like Christmas because Taylor and Marliese's family weren't there. It's sad not to have the whole family there. Maybe next year we will have more of the family there. We still had a good time though. I love seeing the kids acting out the nativity. Jaden decided he wanted to be the narrator this year. He did a pretty good job for his first time. The kids even got to open their Christmas presents from Grandma and Grandpa Hoenes early this year. (We wouldn't be seeing them on Christmas so they opened them Christmas Eve)

Christmas morning we had church at 9:00am so we made the kids wait until after church to open all their presents. To some this may seem mean but it worked out sooooo good. It was nice to go to church first to get into the real spirit of Christmas. We did let the kids open their Santa gift before church. I actually had to wake my kids up at 7:00 and made them get dressed before coming down the stairs to see the Santa stuff.

Here are the kids at the top of the stairs waiting to see what Santa brought

Opening Santa presents (I LOVE to see my kids happy faces)

After opening Santa presents, breakfast, and getting ready for church we had enough time for a brief photo session.

After coming home from church we ran to get our pj's back on and then opened the rest of the presents. It was a great morning. I loved everything about it. We had a nice restful morning and afternoon. Then for dinner we had all the Miller cousins over for a Christmas celebration. We had a yummy dinner and opened presents. It was so nice to be together.

Claire is loving her new makeup she got from Christmas (She looks like a clown)

It was such a good Christmas. I loved every second it. I just hope next Christmas takes a long time to get here ;-)

Merry Christmas!