family night ~ Christmas

The beginning.....

Paige giving Adam a boost!

Paige pondering what to hang where???

chaos among the boxes...

Friday's family night theme was "Christmas". I know it's a little early but it's my favorite time of the year and I couldn't wait much longer to get the tree up! We thought it would be fun to invite another family to join us for "family night", so the Henderson's joined in on the fun:) We had enchiladas and tacos for dinner (not sure how that tied into Christmas, but it sounded good at the time!), hot chocolate (which I forgot about on the stove... sorry, Ash:) and gingerbread cookies. We also put together shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child and put up the tree.The kids had so much fun decorating it. Paul and Ashley's oldest, Adam, had such a great time hanging ornaments, that even after the last one was put on the tree, he began looking for anything else he could hang on the branches! It was so cute! My favorite part of putting up the tree is looking at all the sweet crafts my children have done over the years. They've grown so much, it seems like it all happened in the blink of an eye.... and I know in another blink, they'll be off on their own. I pray they remember these special times with their family. One of the most amazing gifts my mother-in-law has ever given me was a box containing all of Rusty's childhood Christmas ornaments. So last night, I had the privilege of hanging ornaments that Rusty made when he was 7, right next to ones Carter made last year. Ashley and I had a great time going through all of the boxes containing the Christmas goodies.... We found an Advent calendar Rusty's mom made for him when he was little. She gave it to me two years ago. I was so excited and couldn't wait to use it with our kids. But, in all our moves the past two years, somehow I forgot and it got shoved in a box. I found it last night and was even more surprised to find a few slips of paper left in a few of the pockets. As we read them last night, I thought to myself how thankful I was to have a mother-in-law who instilled in me a passion to love my children as she loved hers! What a blessing she has been in my life... I love ya Mom B:) This year Rusty is in charge of passing on the tradition of the Advent calendar... what an awesome blessing! Here are some pictures of last night. There's not too many~I think everyone was having too much fun and we forgot to take more!