Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope your holiday was great and you got everything you wanted from Santa! We had a great day and really enjoyed being together as a family and visiting all of our relatives. We also got some cool presents!

Like the night before, Emily was still scared to get up in the morning for fear Santa was in our house somewhere. When we asked her if she wanted to go see her new presents she said "NO! Stay in bed and play with these toys." (The toys in her room.) So our gifts sat on the couch and floor for a little while longer.

Finally we made Emily get up and face her fear. We told her no one was in our house except for us. When she walked into the front room and saw all of the new toys all fear was gone and she ran to the toys and begged us to open each box so she could play with them. The first thing she ran to was the play food. She was yelling, "Food! Open it!"

The next thing she saw was the gifts on the couch. We kept telling her Santa brought this stuff but she kept saying "No Mommy did. Mommy got the presents." We didn't know what to say to her about that.

We all got what we wanted this year so we must have been good. I got a new camera. It is a SLR Digital camera. I have been wanting a new camera for a while because mine was so old. This camera takes the nicest pictures. You can focus on one point and it fades out all of the rest of the background so the pictures come out crisp and clear. It can also do a bunch of other things that I haven't figured out yet. I am excited to take more pictures especial some semi-professional shots of the new baby and Emily.

Russell got a new jigsaw for woodworking projects so he doesn't have to borrow his dad's or my dad's saws anymore. He also got a 2.25 ton jack to aid in car repairs. We also got an inverter. This inverter can be used as jumper cables, a tire pump, and an electric outlet when there is no electricity. We are excited to use this while we are camping or when the power goes out.

Emily also got a bunch of fun stuff like play food and dishes and a new cupboard to play with in her kitchen, blocks, a doll, and a bunch of games like Candyland, Hi Ho Cherry-O, Cootie, and Uno Moo. She loves all of these games and we have been playing with them all weekend. The moment she wakes up each day she says "Let's play Cherry-O." Emily loved opening presents. During the month, she would ask me if she could open the presents under the tree and I would always tell her not yet. One day she even snuck a present and opened it after I told her not to. Needless to say she got in trouble. Finally on Christmas, we let Emily open all of the presents. She loved climbing under the tree to get the presents. She would open the present and show us what it was and then be under the tree to get more!

Dad got some good gifts too. A pair of saw horses to go with his new saw and Emily gave him a glove box carrying case with a "SuperDad" shield. This case contains items everyone needs in their car glove box like a notebook, pen, hand sanitizer, wet wipes, tic tacs, a flashlight and more. I actually made this for Russell and one for my brother too.

After opening and playing with all of our gifts, we headed over to my parents' house to meet up with the rest of my family.

When we got to their house, my brother's friend, Devin Coates, was there. We had a good time taLking to him and joking around. Then, out of the blue Devin walks over to the dog treats and eats one!!! Yeah I know I couldn't believe it either! He's like "Hey these are not too bad; they are actually pretty good." We all just stared at him in disbelief as he chewed on the bone. We all said "You did not just eat that!" Then we asked him if the different colored bones were different flavors and he said "I don't know let me try a green one." And he did!!!!! We were all puking in our mouths as he ate it and then he's like "Oh the brown ones are a lot better than the green ones." My mom said "If your hungry, go get some real food in the kitchen!" We couldn't believe he actually ate two dog treats! I had to take a picture of it as proof. Wow...

Anyway... back to Christmas. While at my parents' house, we got to see everyone and see what they got for Christmas. It was fun to be with everyone and celebrate the holiday.

We then went over to Russell's parents' house to visit with them for a while, give them presents, and get more presents to open.

Emily's favorite gift from Grandma & Grandpa Farnsworth was a Princess tent. As you can tell from the excitement on her face, she loves playing with it. We have spent the last few days playing in the tent with our dolls. We sit in there and rock our babies, sing princess and Jesus songs, and hide from Daddy. It is great.

We definitely had a good Christmas this year as with every year. This year we tried to remember the true meaning of Christmas and do more things that would help us remember all that Christ has done for us. On December 15, Russell and I helped with the shopping for Kony Coins for Kids. The family we were given had 7 kids in it ranging from 5 to 16. As we were shopping, Russell and I really seemed to have a connection with this family and we felt like we were meant to help them out. The younger kids were boys and the three older kids were girls. The kids just seemed like good kids and they wanted really basic things for Christmas. For example, the girls wanted sewing things or croquet supplies and clothes. Russell and I wanted to get them everything on their list and for the most part we did except for the 16 girl. She wanted a new dress for Christmas and Wal-Mart does not sell dresses. We felt so bad. I was telling my mom about it later that night and telling her I wished we could do something more for this family. The next morning, my mom called me and said we were going to get that girl a dress one way or another because the only reason a girl that age would ask for a dress is because she wants to go to church. My mom called KONY and asked them what we needed to do to get this girl a dress and they told her to just go get one and take it to the Dixie Center before 5 pm that day. My mom brought me some money before she went to work and after I got off work, I went in search of a dress. I could not believe how hard it was to find a dress in this town! I went to probably 5 or 6 different stores before I went to Ross and found the very last modest skirt (luckily it was in the girl's size). Every dress/skirt I found was either very immodest or inappropriate for church. The skirt I finally found at Ross was the right length and black so it can go with many different tops. I was so glad to finally find something for this girl. I also got a nice red top and a pair of black flats to go with the skirt and still had enough left over to get a little something for the mom and dad too. By this time it was almost 4 pm so I quickly wrapped the gifts and headed to the Dixie Center to drop them off. When I got there, the KONY Coins director, Carl Lamar, was happy to see us helping this family. He and his helpers gladly found the family's bag and put the gifts in it. As we were walking to the bag, he said "This is fun, isn't it?" And I said "Yeah it is fun." It was really fun to help shop for this family and know that they will have a Christmas because of our efforts as well as the efforts of the community. Serving really did help us realize the true meaning of Christmas and we also grew to love this family even though we only know the first names of the kids. Next year, as a family I think we are going to adopt a family to help for Christmas instead of making the blankets to donate.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!