As the Christmas holiday is coming to an end, I am constantly reminding myself what the real meaning of Christmas is. I don't want to forget that Jesus is the reason we have this wonderful day of spending time with family, opening gifts, and enjoying life. We have started a tradition where we have created a "Blessings Book" where we take time out to look at our last year and remember all the times the Lord has blessed us. We can get so distraught at the horrible things that happen in our lives, that we don't even see the blessings that are freely given to us. I know there are many more blessings that the Lord has done but here are a few that we remember:
* Patience and perserverence to endure a challenging and stressful year
* People to help us take care of the girls while Brian was at school
* He has met all our financial needs for 2009.
* He has kept us under His wing and kept us safe.
* Protected me through surgery and has given me more chances to get pregnant
* Stayed with Brian through a tough year of school and graduated with his EMBA
* Loves us unconditionally no matter how far away we may have gone in 2009
There are so many more, but these are only a few that have been posted in our notebook. we will get it out each year to remind us that God is always in the midst of us, working with us to become what He always anticipated us to come.
We were very busy celebrating Brian's 30th birthday and Christmas with all the families. On Dec. 20th, the Wiles family came up to our house for the first Christmas in Tennessee. It was so nice to have everyone here. The cousins had fun playing together and we all enjoyed getting together for Christmas! We always read the Christmas Story and then open presents which remained the tradition this year. Then everyone takes turns opening presents. It is so nice to see what everyone is getting!
For Brian's birthday, some friends came over and ate cake and ice cream. We stayed up late but had lots of fun talking, catching up and of course, playing with Brian's new PS3 game (Thank you Teri and Sid!).
Then we traveled with Brian to his work and then to his parents house to exchange gifts on Skype with the other McEacherns. It was a great thing to do since they live on the other side of the US. Ella and Ava enjoyed seeing Josh, Marcie, and Isabel opening gifts! We spent the night there and woke up in the morning to a great breakfast and lots of presents to open. Ella and Ava got a kitchen set for Christmas and just loved it! Thank you Gramma and Grampa! We still haven't unpacked all their toys and clothes they got. But that gives us new toys each day this week. YAY! The girls had a blast there and then we head up to Brian's grandparent's house. We had a wonderful lunch, played Christmas songs with the bells and began opening gifts. Grandpa/Papa always passes out the gifts, Jeremy always has surprise gifts from Santa, someone always reads the Christmas Story, and there is always lots of love and laughter. We had a great time being up there and makes Christmas more enjoyable.
We took the long 2 hour trip back home and played games and got into new pajamas which was quite relaxing. Gramma and Grampa came over to spend the night for Christmas morning. We all went to sleep after setting up the tree and actually slept in till 7:30! The girls were a little apprehensive at first but once they saw all the presents, got excited. We let everyone open their stockings and then we read "Happy Birthday Jesus". After opening gifts, I would say that Ella and Ava's favorite gift was their big pink chairs. Ella loved the keyboard and played it like crazy. Ava loved this little coffee pot we got the girls and made coffee for everyone all day long.
All in all, we have had the best Christmas ever! It has been so fun to watch the girls faces as they opened the gifts. It was fun to make time to just play and not worry about all the other things going on around us. We have been so blessed this year and we are anticipating an even more fruitful year next year. We expect to learn new things about ourselves and each other. We expect the best and can't wait to see what the Lord has planned!
Merry Christmas!
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