Merry Christmas!

Being blessed with lots of family in town and others visiting from out of town, our Christmas celebrations were spread out over a week and a half, and 6 different family gatherings. And that doesn't even include class parties and a gathering with our homegroup, when we went caroling in the rain together. There were so many good times in December, and it flew by like the down of a thistle.  
Our first gathering was with Steve's family. It was 6 days early this year because Steve's parents were headed to the other side of the earth to celebrate Christmas with Steve's sister, Sara, and her family. As always, we enjoyed oyster stew and swedish meatballs. It was a beautiful night!  
This being my first year with all four kids in school, I decided that I would try to go to as many celebrations as possible. All in one day, I ran the Jingle Jog with Jack in the morning. And then in the afternoon, I went to Tommy's class party where we built a gingerbread house, then I hurried over to Allie's party to serve hot chocolate and play a fun game of holiday BINGO with M&M's (here in the photo), and, lastly, I made it to Macy's party to play more BINGO with her. It definitely made for a really fun day with each of my kiddos. And at the end of the day, we were officially on break from school for two weeks and two days. Woohoo!!!  
The next gathering was when my cousin, Matthew, and his wife, Megan, and their two girls were in town. It was fun to see all the cousins and second cousins playing together. I love this family!  
On December 23rd, we got together with all of my dad's side of the family. I love how the second cousins have so much fun together, even though they haven't seen each other since last Christmas. We had a lively game of Christmas Charadinary!  
On Christmas Eve, the Bates and Bart's dad came over for oyster stew and cranberry-rasberry meatballs. It was nowhere near as perfect as when we have Christmas Eve at Steve's parents' house, but it was our first attempt, and we all enjoyed it.  
The kids thought Santa might really like the 'S' cookie, but we left him a nice selection, and a note from the kids. I know that three kids don't "believe", and I'm really not sure what Tommy thinks, nonetheless, we all enjoyed playing along.  
Christmas morning began at the same time as every other morning - at 6:30am! They were all ready to see what was in all those packages. The kids were all so happy with the gifts that they received, but it was especially great to see them giving gifts to one another that they had bought with their own money. They kept saying, "Oh! You're really going to like this!" because they thought they had done such a great job picking something for the other person.   Later that day, we headed to my parents' for brunch and even more gifts. Grandpa always passes out the presents, and then we have lots of fun playing with new toys. And it was a beautiful day.

  A couple days later, we gathered with family one more time when another one of my cousins was in town with her husband and two boys (but Jeremy didn't make it in the picture). We had a fun gift exchange of "homemade" gifts. It was sweet that each of us had actually made the gifts ourselves. It was great to all be together.

And all this was because God sent His son to this earth to save us from our sins. We could keep celebrating all year! Can't celebrate it enough. Happy Birthday Jesus!!!

All Aboard the Polar Express

 
On our way to the Polar Express, we had to stop and do some sledding and build a really tall snowman and snowwoman. The snow was absolutely perfect for snowman building. The kids loved it. These were definitely Weber-family-record-breaking snowmen. It has been a few years since we made a good snowman, but these were at least three times as tall as our previous one.  
We drove from Flagstaff to Williams to hop on the Polar Express with Grandma and Grandpa Weber. This was a first for our family. We were all excited to see what it would be like to ride a real train, and go all the way to the North Pole!  
We enjoyed huge snickerdoodle cookies and hot chocolate. Yum!  
After we traveled through a time warp, we made it all the way to the North Pole. And then, after the train started heading back, guess who showed up right here on the train, just to see us?!?! You guessed it. Santa came to see us and give us some huge jingle bells, like the ones that his reindeer wear. And he even remembered Grandpa Weber, from when he was a little boy!  
Every single one of us (even Grandma and Grandpa!) tried out a new sport that night at our hotel in Flagstaff. The sport is called "Bed Jumping". We've heard about it from several other friends. What we discovered is that it takes courage, it's a little dangerous, and it is super fun!!!  
We got up to do some more sledding in the morning before we headed home. There was a perfect little slope behind our hotel.   There was a fierce snowball battle that day. It was a fun way to end our adventure to the North Pole. More snow started coming down at about this time. We headed home while the roads were still nice. What a great trip!

Weber November

Happy Thanksgiving!

Since neither of our families were celebrating Thanksgiving on the real Thanksgiving day, we took the opportunity to have a nice picnic at the "Love Park" in Scottsdale, along with Steve's parents. It was a great picnic!

We introduced the kids to "ice-blocking"! Knowing that there's a long, grassy hill at the Love Park, Steve planned ahead by purchasing 6 blocks of ice. We made 2 "sleds", and took turns riding down the hill.

Steve got going the fastest!

On Friday, we celebrated Thanksgiving with all of my family. This is a photo of the kids enjoying a good game of kickball before we sat down to a feast.

On Saturday, we celebrated Thanksgiving with all of Steve's family. We all felt way too full at the end of this feast!

Thanksgiving goodness!

I am thankful for the many blessing that God has given us. And I thoroughly enjoyed the long weekend to talk about thankfulness with my kids and to celebrate with lots of family.