Christmas Day

I think I forgot to mention that we had a Chinese student come live with us for 2 weeks right after we got back from the States. He is a non-Christian student in the high school who has been living with another family this year. That family was going to the States for almost a month and asked if we would keep him. It was very different having a high school male around. I'm even more thankful for Gary now. :-) Gary is very clean; he never leaves clothes on the floor, he cleans up any mess that he makes, he helps with cleaning. He even washes the shower down afterward. I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful husband and father to Ethan. Hopefully we can train Ethan to follow his Daddy's footsteps.

Our Chinese house guest left once school ended, so he wasn't here for Christmas. The Yaikos and Audrey came over for Christmas dinner. After we ate, we all went for a walk (except for Seth and Kevin, who stayed and took a nap). Sadly, the snow was gone, and it was raining. So, our walk was only a few blocks. After coming back we ate dessert. Gary and I enjoyed having Kevin, Kristen, and Audrey over. Even Seth and Ethan played together (which we weren't expecting with Seth being about 13 months older than Ethan).

Ethan getting ready to open his present. We waited until evening, after everyone left before he opened his gift. Gary and I have opened presents on Christmas evening/night since we've been married. Some of it out of time since I'm usually cooking all morning, and some of it in an attempt to try to not focus on physical gifts, but the gift that God gave us in sending His son to earth knowing that He would die. A lot of people know that I don't like all of the Santa Clause stuff because it seems to take away from the point of Christmas-- the celebration of the birth of Christ. I am enjoying thinking about and talking about traditions that Gary and I can do to have fun enjoying Christmas and at the same time focus on Jesus. One advantage of getting married and having a child at an 'older' age in life is that we can glean from what others around us have done.

As some of you have probably noticed, I seem to be posting stuff about once a month and trying to post stuff from the whole month at that time. Hopefully I can start doing it more regularly, but it's unlikely to happen before February.