Christmas

Christmas!  The kids had a good Christmas, despite what they asked for last week.  Josiah got a Penn & Teller Magic kit that he loves.  He kept thanking us for it all day long.  (That's how you know you got them a good gift.)  Henry got a Nerf basketball hoop that he has been playing with nonstop all week long.  Before Christmas, Henry constantly was tossing a ball around.  Constantly.  Now that he has the hoop, he can at least direct the ball to somewhere relatively safe.  (Although I have been quite surprised that we haven't had a broken picture frame or anything despite all the ball throwing.)  He has also used the ball to play catch inside.  He and Josiah pretend that they're doing football plays.  Henry will throw it and if Josiah catches it, he always has to run for a touchdown.  They try to make it an urgent play, but they don't have the strongest grasp of football timing.  One time Josiah threw it to Henry and with an urgency in his voice said, "Henry!  Catch it!  Five minutes left in the game!"


Grandad & Nana got the boys Lego kits, which were joyously put together immediately after breakfast.

Grandma and Grandpa sent slide whistles and pan flutes among their many gifts.  Todd is giving it one more week, before he packs them up in our luggage to take to the beach in June.

Great Grandma got them cool little writing tablets.

Caroline got a doll that cries and takes a bottle, just like what she packed up in the Samaritan's Purse shoebox.  She also got a red dress from Nana & Grandad that she has worn several times this week already.  And she got doll beds from Grandma & Grandpa that she loves.  She's been having a lot of doll time.

In fact, having her new doll beds has inspired her to put all of her babies to bed.  One night, she gathered all her knitted blankets and had a giant sleepover on her floor.  Each blanket held 3-4 of her babies.  "But," she said, "the white blanket isn't for my babies. That's my dance floor."  So, every time she went back to get more babies, she'd stop at the white blanket and dance around for a minute before moving on.  Classic Caroline.

We made a birthday cake for Jesus as well.  We got the recipe/idea from our children's minister at church.  It was very symbolic:
The cake was round, representing the world.
The cake was chocolate, representing the sins of people.
The icing was white to show Jesus' purity, covering our sins.
It had an angel on it - the bearer of Good News.
It had a star as the bearer of glad tidings.
Twelve red candles represented Jesus' blood covering us all the time, twelve months of the year.
Evergreens were on the cake to represent everlasting life.
Lighting the candles showed that Jesus is the light of the world.

All these things we went through, reading a passage of Scripture with each one.  It was all very symbolic and special and all that good stuff.  Henry eats some of the cake and says, "My favorite part is the sin."  And there went the moment.

After lunch one day, the boys were eating some of their candy from their stockings.  Henry had a Twix bar and Josiah was eating his Pocky (little shortbread sticks covered in chocolate).  Henry asked Josiah, "Can I have one?  I gave you 3 of mine."  Josiah, using his Awana verses, said to Henry, "Well, you're supposed to be a cheerful giver and you're supposed to give without expecting anything in return."  He did succumb to Henry's continual asking, and I think he gave him one and a half Pocky sticks.  I'm not so sure he did it cheerfully, though.

The amount of junk food they have eaten this week is bordering on ridiculous.  While waiting for their Book-It Pizza Hut pizzas to be baked, we stopped off at the grocery store to get some New Year's Eve treats.  Henry picked up one of those bags of donuts.  Josiah got mini-muffins.  (They picked out Little Debbie Christmas Trees for Caroline.)  After eating their very healthy dinner of pizza, they wanted some dessert.  They were in the kitchen eating,Todd and I were in the dining room.  I went back in the kitchen and Henry had eaten the entire bag of donuts.  I looked at it and said, "Henry!  There are six servings in here!!"  Josiah chimed in that he had told Henry he shouldn't eat so many.  So I asked Josiah, "How many did you have?"  Josiah ate 4 donuts after having already eaten a package of mini-muffins.  We need to go on a sugarless fast for the next month!  Caroline is no better.  She basically asks for dessert from the moment she wakes up in the morning.

We did Advent candles this year and each week when we lit the candles, we read some verses from the Bible.  We used the Bible app instead of the real Bible, which got Josiah interested.  He wanted to look at the Bible app.  So for the past couple of days, Josiah and Henry have been reading the Bible together.  Josiah reads it on the app and Henry uses his big font Bible that he got this year.  Henry's Bible is the red-letter version (Jesus' words are in red).  He held up his Bible and said, "Jesus talked a lot.....but I still talk more." Yep.

Now it is New Year's Eve.  Henry is scared of the sound of fireworks, which in his defense, are occurring directly outside his window.  He's come downstairs twice already, so we've set up a fort for him to sleep on the couch so he can be near us. 

Josiah is expecting us to come in at 11:55 pm. and sing in the New Year with him.  I'm not sure that will happen, but I may go in and whisper Auld Lang Syne just to say I did.  He wants me to wake him up and have a party.  I'm not keen on that. 
It has been a good year, but we are excited to see what 2018 holds.