The Marshy Corner: Our Christmas at Home

We celebrate today the birth of our Lord and Savior, who came to this world to die on the cross for our sins, so that we, sinners, could ascend to heaven and have eternal life. In our daughter's simpler terms, today is "happy baby Jesus", which translates into "Happy Birthday Baby Jesus"! How much fun this Christmas has been for us!" Kateli is now 2--she actually unwrapped all her gifts, plus some (she willingly helped her little brother uncover his boxes!). This year, we decided to stay home and celebrate Christmas together the four of us.

The last two days seem like it's been all work, but it culminated in a very fun time tonight. Hubby invited over a friend from church to Christmas dinner with us. Being the "homemaker" and a bit OCD wife that I am, I decided the house had to be tidy, and the dining room in usable condition--which entailed dear hubby to do a LOT of moving and cleaning in said room of the house. We started Christmas Eve day. I went to the gym in the morning, to get geared up for a day of cleaning. While I was gone, hubby and Kateli folded and stuffed Christmas letters (my apologies for a late letter!!) We finished the letter stuffing when I got home, and got to the cleaning. The kids were AWESOME!! Joshua as content as can be--didn't need to be held too much, he was happy in his bouncy chair, exer-saucer, swing or play mat! and Kateli, well she was a helper! We cleaned, we finished our Christmas letter, and then I put up wall hangings, frames and the such to decorate our bare walls! All the while, hubby cleaned out the dining room and five loads of laundry were done, in preparation for our upcoming trip home for New Year's. We found out last year, that it works best if hubby and I do our Christmas ahead of time, so that we can focus on the kids Christmas morning--the kids went to bed as usual; we stayed up past midnight (I think we've decided that next year, we'll do our Christmas ahead of time, but not at midnight--it's brutal trying to do that with a baby who's still waking up for feedings and a toddler who is ready to start her day at 7am!) So what did our Christmas look like?? Let me show you....ENJOY THE PICTURES!

My new Digital SLR Nikon Camera!! and now to learn how to take great pics

Daddy's big xmas gift, 35 lbs dumbells!

The first picture taken with the new SLR camera!

This is what you get when you ask a toddler to wait to open gifts...

We finally got her to oblige and listen intently to the Christmas story before opening gifts!

One of Kateli's gifts was a book about the Little Drummer Boy, she was genuinely touched by this story. Here she is telling me that the little drummer boy was sad...