Christmas Day Recap

We spend Christmas Day with my family.

Here were the kids minus Joshua who had just gone upstairs for a nap!
Livvy is such a wonderful cousin to all these little ones. They basically think she is the best thing EVER!

Four of my brothers were home. On the couch is goes from left to right, Robert (2nd youngest from NY), Jordan (youngest from Waterloo), me (4th youngest), Joe (3rd youngest from Harlan) and behind us Nick, or Clark W as we like to call him (5th oldest from Cedar Rapids)

And then we added in the 2nd Jordan of the family...

The girls - Amy (Joe's wife), mom, me and Stacie (Nick's wife)

There were also dogs present. And nothing could have made Tess happier!

Lauren set up a play to go along with our devotions for the night. Sullivan was a shepherd. An apparently in biblical times they drank red punch and had mustaches - just like in modern times!

I told Jordan last night that the Christmas devotion time at my mom's is probably the 30 minutes of the year that I miss my dad the most. The time when his absence is the most glaring and the most deep cutting. He loved Christmas with his family and talking about the birth of the Savior that he loved so very much. And then he loved watching his kids gathered around opening gifts and laughing. Our family knows how to laugh. Oh boy do we ever! And my dad had a great laugh that we miss so much. Even with all the other noise...its obviously missing.

So after the devotion it was present time. And here are some of us enjoying our gifts.

We warned Jordan that these pictures would come back to haunt him!

And the other Jordan was thrilled with his new shirt.

Uncle Robert got the kids' great craft projects. Here he is observing Lauren's work. And my mom made Lauren's hat! Isnt it the cutest?!

And again, by the end of the night...Tess was looking for a comfy place to land!