Celebrating Christ's Birth!

Wednesday, we celebrated Christmas Eve at home with Susan's mom, Barbara, a.k.a. "Mema." We had a nice dinner of filet mignon, baked potatoes, asparagus, and pineapple upside-down cake. Oh, we also served Cheerwine, a cherry cola-type beverage found here in the Carolinas that contains caffeine. (We'll get back to that shortly.)

After dinner, William read the Christmas story aloud from the Bible while the children performed a re-enactment. Jeremy was Joseph, Marissa was Mary, Annika was an angel (demoted from baby Jesus in previous years), and Benaiah now had the part of Baby Jesus. Mary didn't labor as hard as she had in previous years, and Baby Jesus fled the scene as fast as he could. The holy scene quickly degraded into chaos! The Cheerwine had kicked in! The cast got too hot since it was over 60 degrees outside, and took off their clothes! We ended up sending them out onto the deck outside in their underwear to cool off and calm down. I'm marking my new calendar with a note to not give them any caffeine for Christmas!

Christmas morning, Mema came back for our gift exchange.

Jeremy was totally stoked to get an iPod shuffle! He is still SO EXCITED!! He only got the one package, and it appeared to be just 2 shirts until he took them out and found the iPod. What a happy boy!












The girls enjoyed wearing their new boots and playing with their umbrellas in the warm outdoors. They also got swimming Ariel mermaid dolls with which they were dying to take a bath!












Benaiah got a rag doll that was made by another adoptive mama. We named the doll "Ezana." Benaiah loves him! I love it when he walks around with Ezana hanging out of his mouth by an arm or leg! Ezana frequently has baby slob on him! Benaiah also got a new top tooth for Christmas!







We were to celebrate with Susan's family later on Christmas day, but Barbara got sick, so we're hoping to see her and Susan's sister and her family on Sunday now. Then, we'll have another Christmas celebration next week with William's parents. We have just begun!