Jingles made his first appearance of the 2009 Christmas season this morning! The kids were so excited! We read the book last night at bedtime in preparation. It's called "The Elf on the Shelf". It's our tradition (thank you to Mrs. Harke) now to have Jingles come every year the night after Thanksgiving and stay with us, watching over the children until Christmas morning. For those of you not familiar, every night he flies back to the North Pole to report to Santa whether they have been naughty or nice. He returns each morning perched somewhere throughout the house. There are a few rules to follow: The children cannot touch him or he loses his magic. Also they can talk to him and tell him what they want for Christmas, but he can't talk back to them. They take it very seriously and it's just so much fun to watch the excitement in their eyes each morning as they search for him in the house!
We put up our Christmas tree on Wednesday. The kids were chomping at the bit and wanted to do it while Grandma and Grandpa were still here. We have had a wonderful visit this week! They leave tomorrow though, so we are going to make the most of our last day together. We are going to take them tonight to Lewis Ginter to see the Festival of Lights. Wev'e never been and are excited to go see it.
Bonita and the kids came out for 10 days and the cousins got a chance to visit and play. It was so nice to see them together again. They came over a few times after J&C got home from school last week and we had a sleepover last weekend. They left yesterday morning to head back to CA. We hope their flights were uneventful and they got back safely last night. I am sure Patrick was ready for them to be back! Anyhow, we are thrilled to annouce that they are expecting their 4th child this spring and that there will be another niece in the family!
Yesterday was a wonderful day as well. My parents and brother came down and our friends The Steimers joined us. We had a total of 14 people for Thanksgiving dinner. The food was delicious and thanks to mom for helping with the side dishes and for bringing my favorite pecan pie. John's dad made a yummy sweet potato cake too. We filled our bellies to the brim and just enjoyed the day together. It was a real blessing to have both sets of grandparents together for Thanksgiving. It was the first time we were all together.
Hope everyone had a nice day yesterday and it was filled with many blessings and fond memories. Let us not forget the men and women in our armed forces who are deployed and weren't able to spend the day with their families, including my cousin Kris who is on his 3rd deployment to Afganistan and his wife and 2 little ones at home in TX.
God Bless...
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