Christmas Part 1

We enjoyed having Christmas at our home this year and having the McCanns here to celebrate with us. Here the girls are all dressed up and ready for Christmas Eve service.


This is the whole crew of us.


The girls were so excited when they woke up in the morning, Lucy woke up at 6am bouncing off the walls. We ended up having to wake up the little sisters to begin opening gifts.


Lucy showing off some of her new winter attire.


Everyone had to help out, to make sure that they could be apart of unwrapping of each and every gift.



What a blessing it was to focus our hearts on Christ's birth this year. We have been back in the States for 9 months now, but I have to confess that Christmas was another culture shock that I wasn't really prepared for. At first it was hard to get away from the consumerism mindset and Santa Clause, thinking I had to make the Christmas of a lifetime for my kids. But once I was able to step away from all that and set my heart on Christ, we had a wonderful Christmas, teaching our kids Luke 2, and worshiping our Savior on Christmas day.

Christmas prep

We had a wonderful Christmas this year, it was a full month of celebrating with our church, family, and enjoying our own family traditions. It was a joy this year especially to see our children begin to understand and grasp Christ's birth and the reason for our celebration. Here are just a few pictures of what we did this month:

Decorate our tree, what a joy it was to have a REAL tree this year and be able to get out many of our ornaments we haven't seen in 3 years. I love how all our ornaments have stories of people and places in our lives. This particular ornament was made by our young teammate in Honduras to celebrate and remember Anna's 1st Christmas.


Decorating sugar cookies with Dabo. This is a Christmas tradition I grew up with and although every year we have done it with our kids, it was extra special this year to have the "true" cookie maker in our household to help us.


The girls loved decorating the cookies and then we enjoyed sharing them with all of our neighbors.


We also went on a horse drawn carriage of Christmas lights, it was a cold wet night but worth it.


We had many great Christmas celebrations with our church. This picture was taken the night of the Hymns and Carols at our church, where the older girls sang "Go Tell It on the Mountain".


Anna enjoyed decorating and un-decorating the tree all month long. Good thing we received new toys to play with for Christmas, or she would be bored once we took the tree down.


Gannie and Aunt Curly taught the girls how to make Reindeer sandwiches.


Here is Aunt Curly coaching Lucy through the making of Hello Dollies, a traditional Christmas desert.


The girls enjoyed reading through many Christmas books this month, including this one, "The Night Before Christmas".



I will try to post pictures soon of our Christmas celebration with both of our families that we have had the past few days.

The School Show

For those of you who knew my Lucy the past 5 years of her life will be shocked to see this video, where the teachers called her a star. Literally for every performance she has ever had in her life, she has run from the stage, crying. But she was so confident sitting up front singing all the words to the songs, and smiling. I was so proud. I am thankful that the Lord has given her confidence in who she is.

November has come and gone

Because once again I have slacked off in my blogging I am going to try to recap the month on November for you, since somehow it is already December and Christmas is nearing the corner.

It started off with a wonderful family trip to the mountains, where the girls experienced their first time roasting marshmallows by the fire.


We also took a short hike to see some waterfalls.


And of course no trip to the mountains would be complete without a picnic at the meadow, one of my favorite spots in the world where my dear husband proposed to me.


Ellie, at the age of 3, got her first haircut.


Sean passed all of his ordination exams, which we celebrated with a key lime cheesecake.


Anna had her first trip in Cameron.


And of course we had to document the year she was born, as the year of being National Champions.


Lucy helped make her first pecan tarts, a Thanksgiving tradition for the McCann family.


And we all enjoyed spending a few days with Aunt Curly.


Although she wasn't Aunt Curly for one day after a hair cut, Anna didn't seem to mind though.