First communion, baptisms, major life events, I've got pictures galore. Any given Christmas, too many pictures to upload. Christmas + first communion at the same time = complete parenting fail in the photo department! There are no Christmas Eve family pictures in our festive outfits or even one of the girls in their new pajammas in front of the tree or putting out cookies for Santa. We have one... count that, ONE... picture of Laurel taking her first communion. We have no pictures of Laurel and the family with the pastor. Honestly, there aren't even too many pictures of Christmas day. I'm not really sure what happened here!
Moving past that, the events of December 24th and 25th were wonderful! Laurel has been preparing for communion for a while now and it was moving to watch my dad assist the pastor in offering her the bread and wine at the Christmas Eve service. Laurel beautifully sang a solo during the evening and Sierra did an amazing job performing two readings. Sierra forgot to officially end her reading. She came back and sat down as everyone remained still and quiet. Brad pointed out the ending to her in the program and without hesitation she ran back up and said "Word of God. Word of Life" and then ran back to her seat! She was a little embarrassed, but was able to laugh at the silliness of the situation!
My parents were staying for later Christmas Eve services so we didn't have a typical gathering like we usually would for first communion. We came back home joined by our friend and her daughter, Laurel. Together, Laurel and Laurel read the "Night Before Christmas", we made reindeer food to put on the lawn, and enjoyed eggnog and cookies.
Christmas morning was wonderful to hear the excitement of all of the girls. Sierra worked so hard on paintings for each family member, Laurel wrapped up quite a few of her own toys to give as gifts, Cadence went to town opening any package within arm's reach, and I was surprised and excited to get a blue box from Brad! Typically we at least head to my parents' house for part of the day and sometimes then up to see Brad's family, but this year the grandparents came to our house. It was wonderful to not have to go anywhere for the day and still get to celebrate with our families! Despite dreary weather the kids spent quite a bit of time outdoors trying out their new toys (and so did I!). I guess I will just have to try to keep the mental log of my memories since I have so few paper ones. The fact, though, that we had too memories to keep up with to photograph them all... well, I'm okay with that!
Laurel's first communion
As soon as we sat down in church Cadence opened her bubble wrap bag, took off her shoes, and slipped on her penguin slippers. Girlfriend demands comfort!
Getting ready to read
Brad is really getting ready to pet Shiloh, despite how this looks!
Reading the same book that I read as child
And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...
Christmas morning chaos
Mini Rip Rider
Once she figured out how to spin there was no stopping her! Okay, the car stopped her, but she had her helmet on!
Everybody rides...
Round two with the grandparents. The kids weren't excited at all!
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