Christmas

- February 10, 2012

This should have us caught up with all the fun of 2011. I hope I didn't forget anything to important. We had a wonderful Christmas. I can't even begin to tell you how blessed our family is. We got spoiled rotten this year. I told my neighbor that I felt guilty that we were so blessed and he said to me" well you know people have free agency and if they want to spoil your family they do it of there own free choice". He also reminded me where guilt comes from. I am so grateful for the Christlike love of others. If it was you. Thank you!
I shared this story with some people but I feel since this is my journal in a way that I want to share it here. Jared and I really wanted to buy Christmas early this year so we started in the summer to get things every month and felt pretty good about Christmas coming. Then we found out that his medications he is on where going to cost a lot of money. Frustration set in and we had not idea how we would pay for his medicine for the month of December. So with broken hearts we packed up the van and took back our Christmas. I cried as we left the toy store and have to admit felt a little sorry for myself. We had tried so hard. It was just a few days latter that we had an offer to help our family with Christmas. We felt so blessed by the Lord. He knows what we have to go through and he always sends us the blessings. Sometimes it doesn't come as obvious as this one but if you look you can see them. This whole experience was very humbling for me. I hope some day I can pay it forward to some other family that needs a boost.
On Christmas eve day my mom and dad brought over a special present for Jared. My family decided instead of buying gifts for each other that they wanted to get something fun for Jared. So they surprised him with a Kindle Fire. He was so excited. And touched by there love for him.

The one thing Jared and I refused to take back was what we decided to get for our Christmas eve PJS. We found a great deal on football jerseys and so we got everyone a jersey. Jared wheres his all the time and we thought it would be fun for all of us to have one too. The kids loved them. Except Morgan. She cried and cried she said she didn't want boy pajamas and she was not happy with us when we made her put them on for a picture. She has not worn hers since. The other kids wear theres all the time.

The other thing we didn't take back was some lego racers that we got everyone. We opened those on Christmas eve also. It was fun to put together our cars and race them to pass the time on Christmas eve. It was a blast!On Your Mark get set go!

Lining up to see what Santa brought.

Before the opening

After opening

This year Christmas was on a Sunday. I loved having Christmas on a Sunday. It was so fun to dress up and go to sacrament meeting. The spirit was so strong. It just made the reason for Christmas so much more at the front of things. The birth of our Savor Jesus Christ. He gave the greatest gift of all. I don't know how I could survive a day without that gift. The kids all got new church clothes and they looked so nice.