Merry Christmas

We would like to wish each one of you a very Merry Christmas and hope you all had a wonderful holiday. We are very thankful for all of the blessings in our life and want to remember the reason for the season and how blessed we are that God sent his only son to die on the cross for each of our sins. We want to celebrate the birth of Jesus and thank him for his sacrifice so that we may all have eternal life with him and that our sins can be forgiven.

We had a great day today and celebrated with our family here in Elkins. We have a tradition of opening one gift each on Christmas Eve so last night we gathered for a great Mexican dinner fixed by my mom with authentic food from Mexico. She lives about 1o miles from the border down in Texas so she was able to bring some tamales that she had hand made from scratch (they take 12 hours to put together) and she made some great soup.

The boys got cars to race.

And Presley got a cute little butterfly that plays songs and rolls around.

Looks like the guys had a great time playing. Brent and I got a fun game that we all played until bedtime.

Presley took one last look at the tree and made sure the ornaments were just perfect before heading off to bed to wait for Santa to arrive.

Christmas morning. Presley stuck to her regular schedule so I took a picture to remember the days when she didn't really have a clue of the excitement to come in future years of anticipation of what St. Nick has left under the tree.

Brent now fits in with the Arkansas crew with his very own coveralls. Now he can work out in the cold with the rest of the men.

Santa put a new Hogs coffee mug in my stalking. I had lots of other great goodies in there, I must have been really good this year!

Presley taking a look at her new baby from Granny Great. She also got a beautiful ornament from Granny Great that we will have for years to come.

Presley thought she would give PaPa a hand putting together her ball popper.

Dillon got a great surprise with a new helmet -which he thought was for the buggy that they already have at home for Kyle. But then we remembered we thought we heard Santa open the garage last night so we thought we should go check it out and what did we find but a great new 4-wheeler. He was super surprised since he hadn't thought to ask for one.

And Miss P was also super surprised to get a 4-wheeler of her own from Grandma.

She hasn't figured out the power button just yet, thank goodness b/c the box says it goes up to 2mph. I can just see the accident waiting to happen on this one. She likes to sit on it or just push it around but it will be a good thing for her to grow into.

I also got what I wanted for Christmas. I've seen some people around here with these cute mother's rings with their kids names on them so I asked Brent for one. It has her first and middle name and her birth date on the inside. I love it.

Thanks to my mom for cooking a great big breakfast of Belgian waffles, sausage balls, bacon and tons of great stuff. We have really been eating good with all of her cooking. We had a wonderful Christmas and got more that we needed I'm sure..but are very lucky to have such a great family and we had a really fun day hope you all had a great day as well.

One last hug for Elmo before it's off to bed and Christmas is over until next year. Thanks PaPa for the Elmo - we love it.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.