Christmas 2013

 2nd post of the day

Greg came up with this creative idea when I said I didn't want to wrap bows and arrows!  They were bought at the Mast General Store in Greenville last summer and dragged all the way back here but have been very popular!


Below is the note that Scott wrote to Santa before we left for Cebu

 Jesus is the reason for the Season was one of Ashley's Christmas program songs-I laughed though when I really looked at how she wrote the word Jesus!

 Since we had read from Luke 2 on the morning of Dec 25, Greg was reading to the kids from a Max Lucado book about Christmas and told them to close their eyes and picture it as he was reading!

 Stockings!

 A little break for breakfast!  Instead of birthday cake, this year we had breakfast fudge for Jesus birthday and sang Happy Birthday!  We were also laughing about the Christmas playgroup that I took the boys to when they were little at our wonderful home church in Greenville, ERBC, where all the children were confused as to why Jesus didn't come to his birthday party!

 Uh-Oh!  You may get shot at at our house!

 Opening books from Grammy!  This is why my mother always made me wait to open books last!

 This is Ashley's present from the Gross and Gregory cousins!  It is handmade by a sister of someone we met at school and is just beautiful!

 A Rapunzel dress that fits well and has no scratchy fabric like the store bought ones!

 Scott and Katie share a love of 39 Clues books so the Gregorys gave him some new 39 Clues cards

 Katie also sent the kids gifts purchased with her own money-such a sweet grown up girl!  A book of Word searches for the boys

 and a notepad with Hello Kitty that Ashley is clearly VERY excited about!

 Another building kit for Ryan from the Gross Family

for Ryan-a 3 in 1 vehicle (plane, helicopter and hovercraft) from his cousin Ian and the rest of the Gregorys too.  We have joked that we could leave Ian and Ryan alone in a house full of legos for months as long as they had food!  The two of them would probably never exchange a cross word-as long as there were plenty of legos!

 an Angry Birds card game-also from the Gregorys!

The Gross' got Scott a spy kit-I think his favorite part is the laser beam door alarm that alerts him to anyone entering his room!

 Ashley thought this oddly shaped package was a princess pirate ship. . .

 She was wrong-it was a Lalaloopsy house!

 Here is Bev opening one of our ALIG charity calendars with beautiful pictures of the Philippines

 The boys were excited about their small swiss army knives!  that live on the kitchen counter and have to have Mom or Dad's permission to be used!

 I agree with my mother and grandmother that it isn't Christmas without new books!

 Greg is harassing Ryan as he opens MORE legos

 Chocolate covered mangoes for Bev!

 a transforming submarine for the pool

 Ryan is ready to head off to his room to build!  See you again when school starts Ryan!

 Captain America!

 Building the Hello Kitty school accessories!

 Ryan LOVES turtles!  He got a lego turtle house (which we looked all summer for at Target, Wal-Mart, and every toy store we went in-there were no turtles in the US because they all got shipped to Manila-they were in every store that sells legos here when we returned in August).  I also bought him a turtle magnet at St. Simon's this summer.

 Below is Scott trying out his new wii game-marvel comic heroes

 Ryan, set up and building in his room!

 Rapunzel with her umbrella-a very Asian thing!

 The measure of a good dress!  Does it twirl well?????

 Also great-the sleeves snap off and on

 Enjoying their new things!