A wonderful Christmas!

This year was remarkable! As I have mentioned win previous posts we've had so many blessing this Christmas Season. We started our Christmas Eve off with an evening at Grandma and Grandpa Mettler's house. We enjoyed a nice dinner with grandparents and Casey's sister Jill and her two boys, Nathan and Peyton. The kids played while us adults hung out. Then the kids opened their traditional one Christmas present from G-ma and each received some beautiful new jammies. Right before we were to leave our kids were surprised with a secret Santa gift(from their aunt and cousins-who tried so hard not to give themselves away)!!! We love ya Jill, Nathan and Peyton. This was a huge gift for our kids, when they opened it up they found a Wii inside. They have been wanting for one since it came out but haven't really asked because of the cost. We know Aunt Jill doesn't really have the extra means either for such a huge gift, but when it was left to her by an anonymous donor and she already having one decided to pass on the joy of giving and gifted it to us. THANK YOU so much!!! On our way home we went buy to deliver a little Holiday treat to our friends the Shultizes(their family lived in Albion with us and ended up moving to the Declo area the same weekend we moved to Declo). We took the tour of their home and visited a while. Then they explained that Wade's family has a tradition each year at Christmas. His 8 siblings and families have decided that instead of doing a gift exchange within their family that two sibling each year decided on a family they would like to do Christmas for and then all 9 total siblings put in what they would like to donate! This year they had chosen our family. WOW, we were shocked! We had no idea and to be honest I was floored. Angela had been reading my FB and knew we were working on the adoption and new our past year of still playing catch up from our move. What remarkable friends we have! I held it together in their house as we loaded up our box of presents but when I got in the car to read the card they had left for us and I opened it up to a large amount of money instead. I LOST IT!!!! This was a complete blessing, and an answer to our prayers. We decided to take the money and use it to buy our kids the few things they really NEEDED: church clothes, shoes, winter snow pants and Camry a jacket that will ZIP! Than as if things could get any more AWESOME. We have a huge Christmas stocking sitting on our front porch labeled "from your friends in Albion"! Words truly can't express my complete gratitude for the love and kindness we have been show this Christmas Season!

What was so amazing about this Christmas is that we thought it would be a very simple and somewhat bare as far as present went. With the new moved and still having bills for both places we knew it would be more than tight. We sat all our kids down and explained to them the process of our adoption and how the funds need to be payed out. We explained that if we put a lot into Christmas presents than that would push us back on bringing our kids home. We asked each one of them what they would like us to do, put it towards presents or towards our adoption. Hands down they all said "OUR ADOPTION", that our kids, their brothers and sister's coming home was much more important than Christmas presents. I just love my kids and I feel so blessed to be their mother.
I am always okay with less than more as far as presents go because the true meaning of Christmas is about Christ and his birth and I feel it's so important to keep that the priority and sometimes when the presents are at top of our list we can lose focus. However this Christmas the spirit of Christ was at the FOREFRONT of our Christmas because of the many that GAVE to us as Christ gave of his himself. Their example gave us such prime opportunity in teaching the spirit of CHRISTmas to our kids! I think as a family we all learned a little more humility and gratefulness this Christmas!

Of course Christmas Eve was a late night like most. Our tree was in major need of re-decorating, presents still needed to be wrapped and organized under the tree. My one priority that we will continue to make a tradition every year, we took a small basket filled it full of hay, found a baby(perfect for baby Jesus) swaddled it in a blanket, laid it inside the basket, took our lighted star off our Christmas tree and hung it over the basket. We typed up on a sheet of paper and laid it at the bottom of the basket "Unto us this day a Saviour is born". We put it at the base of our Christmas tree in front of all the presents. Our kids loved it, they asked us if we could do it again next year. Before unwrapping any Christmas presents I read aloud a few hymns centered on Christ birth and then we sang Away in a manager and Joy to the world! Then we read the Saviour's birth from Luke! It was an amazing experience to put this before anything else. Making our Saviour the priority first set the tone for the rest of day! We finished opening all our gift and then went over to our Grandparents to finish celebrating with them and Jill and her boys! We ate a good dinner, challenged each other to the Wii and just enjoyed our time together! All in all it was a fantastic day. We were truly blessed.