December 2019

As usual, these are out of order, and I don't know how to fix it!  :)  But here we go nonetheless...  December!

This was Christmas morning at my parents' house...  All the happy kiddos!

Eli tested for his red/black belt in December.  He has been working SO hard for years now, and the red/black belt is the second to last step to becoming a black belt in karate!  He'll work this semester on refining everything he has learned, and the belt (which is red on top and black on bottom) will get flipped to black on top and red on bottom at the end of this spring semester.  Then next fall he'll test for his BLACK belt!  We are so proud of all his hard work.

See how out of order these are?  :)  This was actually New Year's Eve, believe it or not.  :)

And back to karate...  here he is after his test, complete with his new red/black belt tied on!

 Eric took me to Texas de Brazil and to the Meyerson Christmas concert (the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Dallas Symphony Choir) for my birthday.  This is one of my FAVORITE nights every year.  I love the concert so much, and I love that special time with Eric.  Here's 39!  :)

 To prove our advanced age...  we are HORRIBLE at taking "selfies."  :)  This was the best we could get, and we're still not even looking in the right place!  :)

Eli got a tortoise for Christmas!  Her name is Holiday, and she's a Russian tortoise.  She lives in a box in Eli's room for the time being.  In the spring we'll move her to her new "habitat" that Eric and Eli are building outside.  When she's not hanging out outside (when we're home during the day), she spends ALL her time clawing at the edge of the box, trying futilely to get out.  :)

This was after Jacey's band concert.  Both Jacey and Cooper are in band this year, and both of their concerts were so impressive!

Eli had his guitar recital this month and did great!  He loves playing guitar, and his teacher is wonderful.  We are so thankful for this hobby in his life.

We all went to see the new Star Wars movie together!

On Christmas Eve, we spent the evening with the Heinzes for our annual "dinner and games" night.  :)  We make a bunch of fancy food and play some crazy games together.  It was a wonderful evening!  Timothy and Eli played "Joy to the World" for us (on guitar and tin whistle).

A few pictures of our crazy games...  :)

A rare picture of the three of us!

We spend some time talking together about what's meaningful to each of us about Jesus' birth, and we exchanged presents.

We headed home after that, opened our traditional Christmas Eve PJs, read the Christmas story, and set out gifts.

 

Super blurry, but I always love the "first" picture of Christmas morning.  Eli has a little bag of Hank's presents in his hand.  The funny thing is that they have been in Eli's closet for weeks prior to Christmas, and Hank has spent long hours sitting at the door of the closet whining...  he could smell them in there!  :)  So Hank was VERY happy to finally have his presents!  :)

A few gift-opening pictures...

 

 

 

We sat on the floor and talked and played and opened gifts and ate cinnamon rolls...  this is our FAVORITE morning of the whole year, and we relished every second.  (He's holding up nine fingers for 2019.)

We joined the rest of the family at my parents' house later in the morning, ate more, opened more gifts, and so enjoyed being together.  After that, we played with new toys, took naps (a few of us :) ), and then re-gathered for Christmas dinner.  It was a wonderful day!

Whew!  That's it!  We are so thankful for the blessings of 2019 and for the lessons we learned from the Lord.  We are looking forward to what He has in store for us in 2020.  Happy New Year and thanks for reading! :)