Christmas 2010

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I had this great plan to write a post on Christmas day, one that I had been thinking about while rocking Sara Kate when she woke up around 12:30 in the wee hours of Christmas. But Christmas day ended up being crazy busy and I never got around to it. My thoughts included how could a pregnant woman (Mary) be sent to a stable to bear her child? Would a pregnant woman in labor in today's time be sent to a stable to have her baby? I can't imagine that would happen today, but who knows. And I wonder what the inn keeper thought when he learned that that baby born in his stable was the Savior of the world. Anyway, just a few thoughts I had while rocking my sweet baby.

My parents got here Christmas Eve in the afternoon and I finished up a little baking, including a few family favorites like buffalo chips and getting the cornbread made for the dressing. I got soup in the crock pot for dinner and we headed to church at 6. Our church packs the people in on Christmas Eve (maybe most churches are like that??)! It always amazes me to see how many people come out to celebrate Jesus' birth.

Sara Kate says, 'Wa-hoo!! It's almost Christmas!!'

Church was very nice, and Sara Kate did great during the service. She wore her cute little Christmas tree pillow case dress Meme made her (I got no pictures of her in that, oops), and she looked adorable as usual. We came home and had dinner and hung out for a bit before hitting the sack. Like I already mentioned, Sara Kate woke up during the night so we spent some time rocking, which I actually didn't mind that night. Along with my other thoughts that I already mentioned, I was thinking how grateful I was to have Sara Kate here with us this year. She's just such a blessing and a joy.

Apparently, we were very good this year...my parents came bearing wonderful things for me, Chris, Sara Kate, Phillip, and Holly. They are so good to us.

All decked out in our Christmas jammies!

Sara Kate was way into the bows!! She loved them. She was also very interested in pulling paper and eating it. And luckily Chris caught that she had bitten off a piece off a rather large piece of tag and had it in her mouth. Whew.

Stocking time! From Gran and Pop

From mommy and daddy

Sara Kate got a tea set, books galore, some old school toys from my grandmother, and a hat she had NO interest in (and I don't blame her)! :-)

I got a new coat

My mom got the best wrapped present of the day. Yep, that's duck tape and a trash bag. Ya think we are from Arkansas?? :-) It was a Wii.

After all the damage was done here, we had breakfast, finished up cooking a few things, and headed to Bentonville for Christmas with Chris' family. It was a big turnout, including, us, my parents and brother, Chris' parents, his sister and her family, his grandparents, and his aunt, uncle, and cousins from Texas. Grandpa and Grandma live in a community where they can 'rent' out a club house and that's what they did since there was so many people. It worked out great.

Sara Kate looked like a cute little baby Clause. This is the only picture we got with her wearing her bow.

Brandon...we decided him and Sara Kate could be brother and sister with their blonde hair and blue eyes!

Sweet cousins

Sara Kate giving sweet kisses to Aunt Jenny...actually she was biting her chin. Good thing there are no teeth in that mouth! We were all getting a kick out of this!

Present time

Brandon helped Sara Kate with hers. He really took to her...it was cute. And of course she has another bow!!

Playing with daddy

Overall it was a great day. Sara Kate came home with some fun toys, books, and clothes. It was nice to spend time with both of our families together.

Chris' family

We didn't get a picture of my family on Christmas day but we did on Sunday at church. The pictures are on mom and dad's camera so I'll have to get them to send a few to me.

We did our last Christmas at Chris' parents house later that night and we forgot the camera so we have no pictures of that. :-( My favorite thing of the night was a book given to Sara Kate (Hannah got one too), and it was one of those recording books. It was the Christmas story, read to the girls by their Meme and Poppa. So sweet. It made me get all teary. As you can tell, we had a great day. I'll have to do another post later with other random pictures from our weekend, including a project here at the house that my dad helped Chris with. :-) Merry (late) Christmas!!