Nerf Wars

Nerf wars were all the rage when the kids were here.  There was a light of hooting and hollering and running in and out of the house!

              Wearing goggles to protect eyes.

Going over the rules of  how to fight fair

Look at Jill!

   

load 'em up! 

pockets full of bullets

Almost 2 weeks out, I'm still finding bullets left behind! 

"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?  You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.  When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."  James 4:1-3

Well, luckily, our fights were just for fun!

Games

We do enjoy games when we get together!

 This is a Sequence board that my parents made from a real deck of cards.  It is such a fun game!

My friend, Kathy Trim, had written about Christmas Bingo.  I found one on Pinterest, copied it and made our own.  We used chocolate chips for the chips!  When we bingoed, they got to eat all the chips!

Besides board games, we played other kinds of games too!

Like mad libs. 

 The children have to come up with adjectives, adverbs, nouns and verbs and from these random answers, Jill told a funny Christmas story.

The kids did a balance act 

and giggly tummies.

 Hide and seek with candy canes

There was lots of laughter and fun!

Open the gift

Wasn't it fun to open the gifts under the tree at Christmas?

There were practical gifts like a housecoat that keeps you warm and snuggly.

 a sun lamp to keep one's spirit from getting down (since she now lives in Wisconsin!)

a toasty warm down jacket to keep him warm

and there were gifts that just brought pure joy!


There were gifts that will take hours of challenge and patience (paint by number) and when finished will be a nice wall hanging

Alexa will provide us with answers to questions we have

 my new camera lens will provide me with fun pictures I can enjoy!

But what if we just sat around the tree just admiring the gifts and didn't open them?

So many people do just that.  Not with Christmas gifts.  I'm pretty sure everyone tears those open!

But there is no greater gift one can receive than Christ Himself.  God's gift of Himself to us is the BEST gift!  "For God SO LOVED the world that He gave His one and only Son."  John 3:16

Not to mention

                         eternal life, 
                              joy,
                  peace instead of worry, 
   freedom from the bondage of sin, 
                  the riches of His kindness, 
His presence each day so we don't have to 
        walk this life alone.  
                 The Bible - His very Words to us!

                     There are many gifts He offers us! 

We don't have to earn this gift by being good people or doing religious activities to appease God.  We need only accept the gift.  

An unopened gift under the tree does not do us any good.  Deciding to reject the BEST Gift from God has eternal consequences.   Open your heart to Him!

"Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!"  
2 Corinthians 9:15

Family Christmas photo 2017

Before Mindy and Jason left, we had to get our family photo for the year!  And this coming year, Jason will be official!

Jason asked Al for his blessing and when they got back to Colorado, they went for a hike in the mountains where he got on his knees and proposed!

She said "YES!"

Ho ho ho! Wake up!

The 26th was a travel day for Josh's and Jill's families.  Mindy and Jason went to see a movie and we just had a laid back day.  The noise would overwhelm the house in just a few hours!

When Josh's arrived, the first thing Eli asked was 

"Papa, can we fight?"

"No shaking,  Emeri!"

Jill's family arrived around 8PM.  A 12 hour journey!  In Madison, they were almost run off the road when Adam happened to be in someone's blind spot.  Thank You, Father, for keeping them from an accident!

Sophia has new glasses!

It was already past this little one's bed time.

This Nana was excited to read bed-time stories to her!

-Time crunch-

We had a little dilemma.  Mindy and Jason needed to leave by 9am the next morning.  When would we do gift exchange?  When would it be a good time for Santa to come?

The only time we could do it was in the morning so - - -

"HO HO HO.....time to wake up!"

"You aren't Santa!  You're Papa!" Eli insisted.

"No, Papa is still in bed!" Staci said.

They looked and found pillows underneath.  Ooops.

Morning beauties!

Mindy had gotten us some Druber's donuts and I also fixed sausage and bacon and we had yogurt too.  Still in jammies, we ate breakfast.   A quick, easy meal.

 Evidently, Adam had to wear a hat to cover bed head??

 Time to open stockings and gifts!

"Give me five!"

  
KU shirt - of course!  Rock Chalk!

Many years before, I had given both sets of parents fill-in-the-blank Grandparent books.



Using those books plus things told us over the years, I wrote out their life stories so the children would have them.

(there is gift card under the rocks)

Hannah painted a picture for us.  

She loved her fuzzy pillow and blanket!

This kitty purrs, opens and closes its eyes, burps...  since they can't have a real one.

Emeri is growing - 10 going on 16 -  and says she is too big for toys.

I can still remember my first year I didn't get toys and I was so sad about it.

Mindy and Jason brought a pinata for the kids.

But single digits outside made it too cold to hang on the deck!

We compromised - handy to have 2 guys over 6 feet!

Goodness!  This pinata was not easy to bust open!

Hannah knocked it down and they all took whacks at it until it finally bust open.

The kids were in a flurry of action grabbing up the candy and money!!

What a fun time we had!

"Santa" brought some real good gifts this year!