Home and Family: Christmas 2013!

This was sent to us by Katie and Andrew!
It is a German tradition!

On Christmas Day the children had to find the pickle on the tree! The one who found it got a gift!

Except at our house - Anna, Sam, Sarah and Mia were each certain they all found it first!

Being the Mom of many and knowing that fairness is a huge issue we divided the gift between all of the children!

It was a huge chocolate Santa from Germany!
Mmmmmmm!

This adorable Santa is a gift from Katie and Andrew!

It looked beautiful on our tree and I placed it nice and high for safety!

We skyped with Katie, Andrew, Billy and Kelly on Christmas day!

Billy and Kelly went to Germany for the holidays!

Baby Girl Burgess is getting bigger!

Katie will be visiting us in MN in January!
We can't wait to feel baby girl move and to hug our sweet girl!
(Wish Andrew and Penny could come home too)

Billy and Kelly celebrated with us a few days before Christmas before they left for Germany!

The little children absolutely love these guys. Billy and Kelly often come over just to see them and play with them!

On Christmas Eve we got dressed in our holiday clothes went to 6:00 church!

We deliberately avoided the busy 4:00 service in which seats are hard to find and there is an abundant crowd.

The girls loved their matching holiday dresses!

Thank you Tea Collection!

The boys were adorable in their plaids!

And the big girls were in black and grey.

They are such lovely girls!

We are so blessed to have them in our family!

A little TV time to keep the crew calm!

The kids are playing lots of games now- uno and mancala are their most recent favorites!

Last round of formal pics and then OFF to church!

Thanks Dad for taking the pic!

Our boys on Christmas Eve- missing Matt, Billy and Andrew.

It was snowing and absolutely beautiful outside, a perfect winter scene!
The kids had to run around in the driveway and let the snow fall on them before getting into Sylvia!
Joey is in there- hiding!

The service was wonderful and the church was full but not overly crowded!

Then jammies on and a late Christmas Eve dinner.

We have to divide up-

Bigs at the large round table,

Little girls at the little table and little boys at the counter!

Johnny thought this table looked like fun so he joined them!

We had an excited crew on Christmas morning!

We kept the gifts to a manageable amount this year!

Everyone got close to the same gifts.

This way there were no disappointed children!

We were surprised to see the evidence that Santa Claus actually visited our home!

Crumbs on the plate and a dash of unfinished milk!

It worked!

They all got new jammies, bath and bodyworks(shower gel, lotion and sparkle spritzer for the girls), sleds, shovels for outside play and holiday candy.

(We have lots of toys already!)

Auntie Mimi sent us a wonderful gift for our school and Auntie Barbie and Kim(Kelly's Mom) gave the children a gift too!

There will be a separate Christmas sledding post coming soon!