Saturday Dec 16 (our family Christmas, and then afternoon fun too)

We set aside yesterday morning to celebrate Christmas as a family.  And I'm so so glad we did.  In the midst of all that is swirling around us, it was a sweet gift to have a long slow morning (that lasted till 2pm!) to just be us, with some gifts, and a lot of time to play together.

First gift this year was for mom ;) a badly needed new wallet that I'm so glad to have!! 

and this is always my favorite part of Christmas - watching them with the gifts they pick for each other.  The little guys are still solid Dollar Tree shoppers, but there are a lot of treasures to be bought there, and they do a great job with limited resources!  And the older kids are learning to pool their resources when they need to, and investing a bit more in sibling gifts and really picking up some perfectly-tuned-to-the-recipient gems.

Lydia and Isaac knew the colored pencils they bought were exactly what Julianna wanted!

and Isaac is probably 100 pages into the 2017 Nat Geo Kids Alamanac - he cannot keep his hands off this gift from Julianna (that we both knew he would be addicted to!)

Matt (new hat) and the gift-ers :) 

Star Wars hats for the little guys (yay Lydia!)

We spent the rest of the morning opening every package and putting together every craft and it was so fun.  

And I loved having this centerpiece at our lunch table as something a little extra special!

Matt and I went out to do a little shoveling and Luke was the only kiddo who could rip himself away from his gifts to join us. He LOVES this snow pusher and did a number on the driveway, the sidewalk, and the neighbor's driveway and sidewalks too.  

Then it was out to the Snyders and we filled their house and yard with kids and laughter and boy will I miss these people something fierce. 

The temperatures have been perfect and these kiddos play outdoors for hours!  

Two John Pauls in a snowy tree house!

I think the ski goggles are snow ball fight eyewear protection? 

And these may be the snow ball fight instigators?!? 

Hungry and back inside for dinner.... the girls, 

and the boys.

Sweet sweet families that we delight to call friends.