Christmas Eve At Grandma and Grandpa J's

It is the Johnson family tradition that on New Year's Eve we have a special meal of Swedish meatballs, mashed potateos and gravy, Cranberry Fluff salad, etc. My brothers would always have a meatball eating contest to see who could eat the most that year and after dinner and the cleanup we would ready the Luke 2 and then we would open our gifts. It was so nice to eat our traditional meal while here and have the kids join in in reading Luke 2 (top picture). The picture were Gabriel is pointing at Carson is because Gabriel wanted to point out how Carson was on his knees with his hands folded for prayer! CUTE!!! May he always be a person that goes to his knees in prayer!

We had a great time opening gifts as you can see in the pictures! The plate my mom is holding I painted for her and it has each of the kids' hand print on it. Annalina was so happy to get the ballerina jewlery box that plays a song from the Nutcracker! The kids all loved there presents from Grandma and Grandpa!

Gingerbread House

Babe and the kids had a great time decorating this gingerbread house! We all thought it was a pretty well put together kit! Carson and I posed for a picture but really I had little to do with it. The kids with Daddy worked on it! It was a fun Christmas season project.

Fun in the Snow!

Grandpa and Daddy took the older kidlets to a place that makes snow. It was very similar to what we took the kids to a few weeks ago in Pacific Grove. The kids had a blast building snow walls and throwing snowballs.

How cute is this igloo builder?!

Fun with Daddy!

Silly Annalina pretending to take a bite out of a fake carrot.

Building a snow wall with Grandpa J

Date Night

While visiting my parents they gave Babe and I an evening to go on a date while they watched to kids for us. We had a wonderful evening going to a Christmas Concert downtown Nashville! We enjoyed our time together and listening to Christmas music. The carols were beautifully sung but aside from them I really enjoyed a song meant for mommy's about needing a night to be able to focus and think about the meaning of Christmas while it is so insanely busy. The song was not super deep but I so much identified with it. A few weeks ago when we had so much going on I thought that thought exactly! I was so busy I felt like I was loosing the right focus. The song was called "I Need a Silent Night".

The concert was about 3 hours long and by the time we got out the nice restaurants downtown were closed so we ended up at a Waffle House. Mmmm, Mmmm nice greasy spoon resaurant! Babe and I loved eating our omelets and hash browns very late at night!

Me in front of the Ryman Auditorium. The Ryman was built by a man named Ryman (he was a river boat captain) that wanted to build a place that people could come and hear the preaching of the Gospel! So cool!

Downtown Nashville, TN

Andrew Jackson's Hermitage

Well, the picture above is of the family's BIG history buffs! They LOVE history so the 3 of them went to the Hermitage which was the home of Andrew Jackson. The kids and I actually went this summer when we came but it was unbearably hot so it was hard to just soak in the surroundings when we were soaking in sweat! I knew Gabriel would enjoy going back with just Grandpa and Daddy and sure enough they did have a great time.

Grandpa J and Gabriel outside one of the other homes on the property.

Above is Babe by Jackson's grave.

Gabriel outside Andrew Jackson's home.

Fun Times with Grandma and Grandpa in Tennessee

Our kids love to be with Grandma and Grandpa and these pictures just scratch the surface as to why but the simple reason is because my parents which give the kids A LOT of gifts the gift they give the most of is there time and the kids know that. Ross likes to do sticker books with Grandma, Gabriel loves to play chess, checkers, mancala, skip-bo, GAMES AND MORE GAMES with Grandma, Annalina loves sitting on their laps and Carson enjoys the care and attention they give him. As for my dad he is just a perpetual playmate and the kids love running and goofing around with him. To say we are blessed with them is an understatement. I will forever be grateful for the home God put me in and I am grateful that my children get to have the love of my parents too.

Sanctuary Bible Church Christmas Program

It's always fun to watch church Christmas Programs . . . little kids telling the true story of Christmas about a baby Jesus in a manger in Bethlehem. Kids sing to the glory of God uninhibited by if they are hitting the right note or not! Annalina and Ross were in our church's program. Annalina was chosen months ago to sing a solo and speak and she worked VERY, VERY hard preparing. Her solo was very difficult since it was not following a note by note tune. My prayer is that she would bring glory to God in her singing and speaking and I believe she did just that. Gabriel leaned over to me during the program and said "Annalina is doing a good job!" I tried to post some of the video of her parts but couldn't get it to work. She got quite a reaction from the people watching which was fun. For her solo Annalina worked with a wonderful lady at a church that is a beautiful singer herself and worked SOOO patiently with Annalina. She told me that she really hit it off with Annalina which made her able to do this with her. She said Annalina really listened and worked. I would love Annalina to get to work with her more before we move in June and learn more about music ministry.