Christmas 2007

Thought we'd share some pictures from our Christmas celebrations.

Here's the afghan Jess made for Doug (it's a long story, but this is actually my wedding gift to him, so he was extra excited to get it!) :

The kids made cookies with a sweet family we met here (Maranatha was most interested in watching their baby):
Doug's Aunt MaryAnn made hats for the kids, and Nana & Papa sent "Mater" pajamas (among other much-enjoyed gifts) for the boys:

Maranatha loved her new dish set... she's been cooking up all kinds of stuff for us and her babies:

Doug got Jess a pair of pink converse lowtops (couldn't have picked a better gift!):

Christi & Courtney sent the boys this firefighter suit,
and they've been saving the day every day since!

Course, Maranatha wanted to try the firefighter suit on too. :) And Ethan's decked out in his new police outfit from Nana & Papa:

We had some good eats for Christmas this year. Jess made cinnamon rolls (with a maple, cinnamon, and coffee icing- YUM!) for Christmas morning:

Since we can't get ham here, we opted to have a mexican food feast for Christmas this year. We had chicken enchiladas with red and sour cream sauces, beef tacos, homemade salsa, guacamole, and beans. The beans were made with the only kind of beans we could find here-- some white fat beans... anyway, while everything else came out delicious, those silly beans came out really bland and we had a huge bowl full of them. We've been joking about them ever since!
Jess: "Baxter, I put some beans in your part of the lasagne tonight, okay?"
Ethan: "Baxter & I think you should have beans for breakfast this morning, mom."

We made gingerbread wise man cookies that turned out SO tasty:

We gave Maranatha a new stroller for pushing her babies around,and the boys got a toolset and have been fixing up the house and building all kinds of things (robots, swords, and Ethan built a cross).

We had a great first Christmas overseas (you may remember that last year, we unexpectedly ended up going back to Texas on Dec. 22nd for medical testing).

Thank you to all who sent sweet gifts for our family; it turned out to be a very special and simple Christmas and we were able to spend good time together as a family. Each night leading up to Christmas, the kids unwrapped various "characters" from the nativity set, and Doug would tell them that part of the Christmas story during our nightly family Bible time. We hope you had a very merry Christmas as well, able to celebrate the miracle of Christ's birth with your family and friends!