Chandler Christmas!
We kicked off our holiday week with my family for our Chandler Christmas. Amanda made her delicious chicken enchiladas and mom and dad made beans and rice and some other tasty sides for a mexican lunch for us. Before eating we enjoyed the madness of gift opening. Our kids were given so much stuff... they are so very loved and spoiled! And so are we! We love everything that was thoughtfully purchased by my family for us and enjoyed watching as the gifts we brought were opened. I have the greatest family and am glad we were able to celebrate Christmas together.
Dad and Patches
The new slender tall tree with all the gifts... plus silly Emerson playing with the presents!
Alyssa and Justin
Some of the gift opening!
The silly shirts my mom got the guys... they were expandable shirts that were originally almost the size of playing cards.
A picture of us with my mom and dad
The kids with their aunts and uncles!
And here is a video of Cam pretending to talk on the phone... his voice sounds so deep it is funny.
Big Paul Christmas!
We left from Duncanville mid afternoon to head to Austin for the Big Paul family Christmas Sunday night and arrived right on time! Right after arriving and unpacking the car everyone else arrived and the next Christmas celebration began! It was fun visiting with Frank's cousins and his Aunt and Uncle. The Paul family is always a lot of fun. We were all missing Big Frank, but had a very nice time together. And again, our kids were spoiled with more presents!! It was so thoughtful of everyone to think of the kids.
Sarah and Glenn
Uncle Carl as Santa :)
Everyone visiting
Cousins Beth and Kelly with Dorthy
You know... us :)
Christmas Eve!
Christmas Eve was lots of fun for everyone, too! We made some Christmas cookies and Emerson helped. She had lots of fun playing with the flour, which ended up all over her face as well as the floor! :) After church we decorated the cookies and Emerson piled on the sprinkles like you wouldn't believe! We went to the Riverbend Church in Austin for the service and it was a beautiful sermon and service. We sang Silent Night at the end, which is always a sight to see with everyone holding the candles. Before that the preacher talked about the power of light and the joy that is represented by the light. It shines through the darkness and brings us joy. No matter how hard things can be, the light comes and is there. I guess to me it was a message that there is still great joy. The power, wonder, and celebration of the birth of Jesus, which we call Christmas is so great that it overcomes the sadness we may feel. I know I needed to hear that sermon. The message may have meant sometime slightly different to others who were there, but I know that is the message I was supposed to hear because to be honest, I really have had a wonderful Christmas and I have struggled with understanding how I should feel. Yes, there are many moments that are sad, but mostly we have enjoyed this time. And so in my heart I have a bit of a struggle with that. While things don't feel the same and I wish they were different, I am still happy. Going through this loss for Frank and family has been so very difficult. Things don't feel right, but they aren't completely wrong for us. We are still a family, we laugh, argue (just being honest!), pick, joke, etc like always, but one person isn't there to see it and laugh with us. I think there are so many times we catch ourselves silently enjoying something and then we think that it was something Big Frank would like. In those moments we feel the loss again. On Christmas Eve morning there was a beautiful fog over the lake and bridge and I thought to myself that Big Frank would have really enjoyed that. Many times he would take pictures and send them to us on our phones. I happened to be watching the kids and didn't pause to go take a picture outside before it lifted, but I mentioned it to Dorthy later in the day and she commented how she too saw it and thought Big Frank would have enjoyed it. While I don't like feeling sadness, I hope that we always have moments where we see something like the beauty of the fog over the bridge and think of Big Frank.
Emerson and MomMom working on cookies
Our family picture before the service
Our handsome little Cam
Our beautiful Emerson
Dancing for Sarah
Putting a hefty amount of sprinkles on her cookies!
He truly is a perfect little man
Our elf, Joy, telling Santa how great Emerson and Cameron were.
Christmas Day:
Christmas Day was a lot of fun opening gifts with Dorthy and Glenn and Sarah. Emerson was over the moon excited when she opened a red remote control car and exclaimed that "Joy told Santa!". I mean she was THRILLED! If she opened a car she loved it anything else was useless to her. So when she opened one of Glenn and Sarah's gifts that was a Dr. Seuss memory game that looked fun, she made a funny face as she politely put it on the coffee table. Sort of a I know I need to smile and say thank you but I don't like it expression. Dorthy and Sarah got a real kick out of that.
Opening Santa's gifts at our home!
While we were gone in Austin Santa also came to our house because there wouldn't have been any room for that on the car ride home! :) We caught the reaction of Emerson seeing her adorable VW convertible car and the what is now funny reaction the two kids had. Here are some videos of that:
Here is a video of Emerson driving the car for the first time:
The next three videos are us having fun with a slinky that Santa brought as well. Such a simple toy is a ton of fun!!
This one is slow motion using the new feature on the iPhone... in slow motion we sound like cows. :)
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