Christmas 2008

as i was falling asleep last night i realized that today is new year's eve...and i haven't blogged Christmas yet! i need to have it all in here as part of 2008, so today's the day! i'm all ready with slide shows - can't possibly leave out many pictures - so it's just a matter of getting them in here. i've just been too busy sitting around with my family watching movies and playing with my new phone to get this done! =)

our Christmas is spread out over a few days to give time with each branch of our family. Christmas eve day is spent at keith's house with the napier/creasy people. we were actually even all there this year - jason didn't go to a bengals game and no one was home throwing up. nice, huh? we had a great time together, as usual. i'm really blessed to have become a part of that family.

from there we went to church for our Christmas eve service. it was still really well attended, even with the torrential downpours and wind we'd been having all day. so much is special to me about Christmas eve with my church family, no matter which church family i've been a part of throughout the years. Christmas eve just feels different..warmer somehow. sarah beth did the advent reading and lit the candle. i love her...have i mentioned that lately? the 5 of us sang. well, actually blake sang and i was his backup singer, which was a totally new thing for us and i LOVED it. greg and max played guitar and luke played bass. we did "Christmas is all in the heart", a steven curtis chapman song that greg and i have done a hundred times. practice went well but there were some technical difficulties and some confusion when we did it in the service...microphones seemingly not working or monitors not letting us hear ourselves and we only thought they weren't working or something...lots of instructions given by facial expressions from greg and from bob in the sound booth...SO HILARIOUS to me, even while it was going on. blake never missed a beat, just kept on singing. there were 3 microphones in question and i was never sure which we were supposed to use because at various moments, none appeared to be functional. of course on the video i can hear everything, so it must have been the stage monitors. oh well, everyone got a good chuckle. and they already think i'm nuts, so whatever. after church we came home and got ready for santa and Christmas morning.

Christmas morning was really good - tamer in the present opening department but only because as they get older they get less to open because the things they want cost more. it didn't take us long, but everyone was very happy with their gifts. i love to watch their faces when they open the gifts and see what's inside. since we've been back home, we've been able to have our parents and dale and martha over for brunch each Christmas morning. this is such a good time. it's always a hoot to watch/listen to my dad and dale go back and forth. the rest of the day is just spent at home, doing whatever we want. this day involved lots of guitar hero world tour and loud bass sounds from luke's new amp.

we have another day of Christmas in our family. it never ends on the 25th. the 26th is when the blake family gathers at mom and dad's house. the only ones we were missing were my newlywed niece megan and her husband jon. the kids open their gifts first. they really cracked us up this year. they opened their presents together, depending on who they were from. kind of a "ready, set, go" approach. at least the older kids did it that way - they all got money and gift cards pretty much. hannah is only 6 so still had a nice little stack of some actual toy gifts to open. she was sitting there among all her "big" cousins, taking it all in as the adults passed out the gifts. she said, " all the big people get the littlest presents. this is AWESOME! i'm so glad i'm the smallest!"

FINALLY we got to spend an evening with our kaplans. it really had been so long since we'd had any kind of time together, so this was much needed and very welcome...we stuck to our Christmas break tradition and went to a movie (marley & me) then dinner. friday was a 70something degree day, so even by the time we were at pullman and ready for dinner it was still very warm. we ate outside! in december...crazy. but it felt GREAT. after dinner we went back to jeff and donna's for coffee (YUM..thanks, jeff!) and lots of talking for the 4 of us. our 5 boys spent the rest of the evening playing guitar hero, watching a movie, and playing some peanutty board game who's name i can't remember. is there a game called "peanut panic"?? yep, max just said that was it. donna and and i escaped the camera...i was holding it and she was sitting next to me. =)