Merry Christmas!

I hope it's been a wonderful one for all of you. Larry worked hard to bring our day back to Jesus and I think we're both happy with how it turned out. This morning Larry read the Christmas story from one of Julie's books. At certain intervals he would stop and tell Julie to get a present and bring it to her table, each time repeating how Jesus came as a gift to us. When the story was done, the kids got to open the presents on the table. Julie's favorite gift was her gymnastics outfit. She put it on immediately after opening it and wouldn't take it off until bedtime. My guess is that she'll want to wear it tomorrow too!

She also really loved her new chef hat and apron!

Melody was happy about her Turbo Top...

...and her new bib!

The gift I was probably most excited to give the girls was a dollhouse. It's called My First Dollhouse and it's just perfect for young children. I am really looking forward to watching the girls expand their pretend play using the house. Fun! (As a side note, Julie is pretending SO much more recently. It is amazing to see, since that is one of the things that contributed to her autism diagnosis a year ago. Now she tells me "pretend snake" and we have to slither around on the floor, and that's just one of many examples! She has also finally decided that she wants to do nearly everything "all by self!" She has truly come so far!)


Other gifts included some CDs, DVDs, a few books, and pom poms. We tried to limit the number of gifts but they seemed to multiply anyway. It worked out fine in the end since most of the things were small with a few bigger items.

This evening we threw a birthday party for Jesus. We made birthday placemats, blew up balloons, lit 3 candles on a cake and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus.

Finally, Larry read the Christmas story one more time before bed. Tucked into the last page was one more present: some glow-in-the-dark stars. We took them upstairs and played with them while talking about the wise men and the star one last time. It was a really nice day! Thank you Grandma, Oma D, Oma B, Tante and Aunt Noreen for your special part in our day. Your gifts meant a lot to all of us!

Once again, Merry Christmas!