Christmas Festivities

The annual school Christmas concert. I always feel obligated to go since 3-5 graders sing but it runs late for a school night.

Benny's first bucket drum performance! He was so proud & excited. He did great and is the only person in our family happy to be on stage.

I finally made it to the Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens holiday lights display. Girls ONLY date night with Stephanie and her daughter Chloe.

This area of rainbow lights was my favorite. I'm so thankful for my friend Steph. She motivated me to go out on a school night.

Addy's REAL smile! It's a rarity in pictures as she doesn't do it on command.

I've been putting in extra effort to be close to this newly turned teen girl. After the gardens, we drove through the Xmas lights display in Mcadenville, better known here as Christmas town USA.

Our monthly dinner party with friends.

We played a game where you get jelly beans, not knowing if it's the bad tasting one or not. Funny!

The white elephant gift exchange was the best part.

The next morning Josh & our neighbor Eric meet up with Bob & Nathan to play air soft, shooting guns at each other, in our back woods. It's become one of Josh's favorite past times. He had his high school guys over recently to play. He's such a kid at heart.

Steph's ugly Christmas party. I actually got Josh to wear an ugly reindeer sweater too. But I'll spare him posting it on here.

The week before Christmas my poor children ALL got what seemed to be the flu. Benny was the worst.

There were fevers, coughing, puking, and lots of sleeping.

Christmas Eve was spent Mimi's house. By then, only Aaron was sick.

Unfortunately, once the kids were healthy, we didn't have enough time to drive to Cincinnati as planned. So we spend Christmas day at home hiking & playing a new game Joyce got called Ticket to Ride.

This treasure was worth the trip.

After Christmas, the kids went shopping to use their gift money. Here's Aaron at the Lego Store. They seemed to like picking out their own gifts more than being surprised.

It was such a strange Christmas. Next year we're planning to stick with our NC tradition of church on Christmas Eve & home on Christmas morning. Then sickness & weather won't mess up plans.