Merry Christmas All Ya'all

We have felt abundantly blessed this Christmas season.  Last year we spent Christmas cooking at the Ronald McDonald house with a few of our closest friends.  Fortunately we have had another year pass that we have not had to stay any time in the hospital or at the Ronald McDonald house.  While we have made a few visits to the hospital to visit friends and share with them our love, this year we stayed home and celebrated quietly with one another with good tidings and great joy giving God thanks for all we have.  If you don't get any further in this blog, please accept this message as a gift by clicking this link:

A Light unto All: A Christmas Gift

Their may be snow from Denver to Boston, but there's no place on Earth like Christmas in Austin!

Scott does a great solo act working hard to decorate the outside of the house.

These are some of our cute neighbors' houses that we have the view of from our front door.  

I love the contrast of black/white. Reminds me of old Christmases past.  Hanna and Scott decorated the tree this year.

 Starting off the holiday with a fun mother/daughter cookie party and Hanna getting her face painted as Rudolph.

My beautiful shirt my brother John brought back for me from his trip to India with my cute Rudolph.

Christmas morning Hanna woke us up excitedly early to point out that Santa had come and eaten his cookies and drank his milk.

Putting Santa to shame drinking all his milk.

Hanna made us all name place cards (can you find the pink squares ie. Hayden) to sit at the BIG table for dinner.

Wonderful cards from wonderful people.  Some of my favorite decorations.

My first time in 15 years to make all the trimmings from scratch:  spiral glazed ham, marinated turkey, sage sausage apple stuffing, brown sugar acorn squash, bacon brussel sprouts, mash & gravy, cranberry sauce & pecan pie.  Now I can check that off my bucket list:)

Scott's collection of snow villages.  We started collecting one annually the year before we left Denver.

When we moved to TX we had to collect the BBQ one of course.  The pink house on the right was this year's addition.

Santa stuffed our stockings.  No coal this year.  Even Domino got some greenies.

Hanna couldn't have had a better day.  Happy Birthday Jesus!

The attached link is a great Christmas message.  May you feel joy in your heart this season and take a few minutes to watch these great messages!

Wise Men Still Seek Him