Highlights from Christmas!

Christmas went better than we could have imagined.  It was by far the best we have had in 5 years.  As I mentioned before, holidays can be a tense time for my dd who has attachment problems but things are so much better!!  Everything was under the tree unwrapped and fully assembled.  The kids came out and saw what they got and all started saying "thank you!" right away.  They were very pleased to see that they had filled the creche with enough "good deed ribbons" to earn a new doll (representing Jesus and his love of all children). Dh and I opened our gifts the night before so that we could focus on the children.

We counted up the ribbons from the creche and traded them in for quarters.  The kids had earned enough money to buy a week's worth of baby food/formula for a starving baby from the Samaritan's Purse Foundation. 

The kiddos were really hoping for a white Christmas, but no such luck.  So we put "snow" shredded coconut and snowman peeps on Jesus' birthday cake.  The silly snowmen wouldn't stay up so I held them up with toothpicks and told the kids they were skiing.  LOL!  Overall, I think we ended up with a really nice balance between receiving gifts and giving to others.  The kids really got the meaning of the season this year and we managed to shield them from the over-commercialization of Christmas in our country.  YIPPIE!

And now for the crazy part of the post.  Yes, here in Blogdom I will blog about anything, apparently.  One relative gave us some money for Christmas so we bought ourselves a new toilet.  The old one was very unreliable!!  My dh was very proud that he was able to install it himself!  Isn't is lovely?  LOL!!

Anyway, we are really enjoying our break from school, and I am cleaning and re-organizing like a crazy woman.  I am also planning out our next two months of school.  Lots of fun to come!  I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!