Abundantly Blessed: Christmas

We decided to have our family-of-5 gift opening on Christmas Eve morning this year. Some of our boys' favorite gifts were the presents they had bought for their siblings. It was so sweet to see how eager they were to give these gifts!

Jaden had picked out a noise-maker for Adley...

..and Cody gave Adley a pony. Adley seemed interested in the gifts, and both, of course, went immediately into her mouth. :)

That afternoon, unfortunately, Jaden came down with a stomach bug, so the kids and I didn't join Jason at church for the Christmas Eve service like we had originally planned. Instead, my parents willingly came over around bedtime, so I could meet Jason at church for the 10pm Candlemas service. I loved being able to still attend church on Christmas Eve (my second favorite service of the year, after Easter), and Jason and I appreciated having a last-minute date night at church.

By Christmas morning, Jaden was feeling much better, thankfully, but we still wanted to give him the morning to rest. We decided to leave Adley at home too, since she doesn't sit well for church services anyway. Just Cody came along with me to the service at Trinity. Before we left, however, I felt like I had to take a picture of my little girl in her Christmas dress on her first Christmas! She wasn't in a very happy mood, though, and Cody hadn't yet combed his hair, so the pictures aren't the best...

We enjoyed being able to all worship together, minus Jason, Jaden, and Adley. Happy Birthday, Jesus!

The cousins liked playing in the church lobby after the service.

After rest time at our own homes, we met at Grammy and Papa's house for opening presents. Since Jaden hadn't gotten sick again, we figured he'd be okay to join the family. Papa started the gift opening by reading the Christmas story from Luke 2.

Then, the first grandchild, Adley, got to start the present opening. It was so cute seeing how all of Adley's cousins gathered around to watch her.

We only exchanged gifts among the kids this year, so here are a few miscellaneous present pics:

One of the gifts that Grammy and Papa gave to each family was an amaryllis bulb, which we planted at the end of the gift opening.

The cousins enjoyed some time running around and being silly outside.

These 3 five-year-olds all received a new Lego set, so naturally they wanted to build right away.

At some point in the evening, Uncle Andrew encouraged Adley to take her VERY FIRST steps to Mommy! She pretty much toppled forward each time, but I think you could still count them as legitimate steps. :) Once we announced that Adley started walking, this little 9 1/2 month old had the entire family upstairs watching and cheering her on.