Thursday, December 27, 2007

Christmas Eve is finally here!


Christmas Eve....a time of reflection and relaxation, or wen you have young children, a time of supreme excitement. We had Rebecca's sister Sarah and her husband, Josh, over along with Hannaha (Reba's sister), Mark and Sue, and GG (Great Grandma Elaine-91 year old). We had everyone over for food, making gingerbread houses, and presents. We weren't going to see Sarah and Josh for Christmas, so we decided to do Christmas Eve. It worked out great. The kids got to start on their gingerbread houses. Jacob took it on as a task with help from Josh.

Sarah stepped up to the challenge and helped Noah construct something that they could probably live in once it was done and dry. While they helped, I was in charge of helping Jonah. Not a good match. Arts and crafts aren't my thing. It made me anxious to glue the thing together with frosting. The walls fell and I couldn't get it to stay up. I had to pay for a contractor to come in and finish the work--sound familiar?


We all brought food tonight and it was very good. We had ham and lots of extras. The food prep always seems to take precedence on the evening, but not tonight. Most of our time was spent spending time together instead of cooking. It was great.



It is always a surprise to see Noah sitting on Josh's lap. It seems like the moment Josh walks in the door, Noah is velcrowed to his side. He can't get away from him. Noah loves his new uncle Josh. So when it was time to open gifts from Sarah and Josh, Noah flew across the room towards Josh.




Jacob got his travel battleship game that he has wanted since playing it at his cousin's house in Spokane. Rebecca looks a little too relaxed in this picture for having Christmas eve at the house. That's our Reba. Coffee cup in hand, and wearing more clothes than humanly possibly and still a bit chilly.




This year, Sarah and Josh got all three boys their own laptop computers from a company called "One laptop per child" They had a special deal that if you bought one laptop for a child in Africa, they gave you a second one for "free". So they bought three of them and they gave the children the extra ones. They are incredible computers. You can see in the picture that they are durable and easy for kids to use. They have a built in modem so they get Internet connection even in Africa. The hope is that children in these countries can have their own computers that are easy to use. It is a great program.


So as you can imagine, the boys were overwhelmed at getting their own computer, as were their parents. They have had a great time on them the past two days. They are easy to use and they all talk to one another. In this picture, Josh was trying to get the computer set up for Jacob. Jacob thinks Josh can do anything that has to do with computers, and he would probably be right. A big thank you goes out to Sarah and Josh.




Sarah sits on the couch with Jonah as they both figure out how to use the computers.

For more information on the computers, you can go to www.laptop.org




GG was able to come and spend the evening with us and it was great to have her. We all love having her around. Jonah was a big help as she opened some gifts from the family. Santa's little helper.







A cute picture to see all of the children playing on their laptops. The rests of the Christmas gifts were trash compared to the computers--just kidding. They had a great time videotaping themselves and recording their voices on the computer. It is amazing what these computers can do.

We had a fun Christmas eve together as a family. Tomorrow we will be here at the house and then off to my parents home on Bainbridge in the afternoon. RnR







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