Merry Christmas

Just a quick post.  We have had a great weekend!

Friday it seemed like our plans to "officially" start our holiday vacation were not going as planned.  Both Reed and I had planned to get our "work" done so we could just do our fun family work together.  I have to say, I got so discouraged thinking it wasn't going to happen.  And it didn't as early as we thought.  But with some helpful improvisation (sp) thanks to my sweet husband and we were well on our way by later in the evening.  

Saturday we had a few errands and fun things to do.  Groceries, holiday goody deliveries etc.  And then we got to go our for our anniversary.  It was great.  we went to see National Treasure.  (we really liked it.  It was similar to the first, but not totally the same.  Very entertaining and a much better sequel than other other attempts by Disney)  Then we went to a resturant Seviche.  It was fantastic.  A little ice cream from Graters and Santas last shopping trip of the season.  People often comment how bad it much be to have an anniversary in December, and I even admit it's hard to fit it in.  But, I also love celebrating and remembering our weddding at the time of the year too.  It brings back all of those Christmas memories from that year!  And it was fun to have an evening just to us for the holiday.  --as I side, Reed totally spoiled me with a digital SLR camera and I love it.  Now if I can learn to use it.

Sunday was great.  I love going to Church for Christmas.  I really love it when the holiday falls on Sunday, but this was great too.  It made it seem like Christmas festivities started early.  The meeting was awesome with great talks (Reed!  was great) and music.  Reed talked about serving like Jesus served.  How He didn't prejudge people if they deserved the circumstance they were in, or how He stopped other worthy pursuits when someone felt like they needed Him.  How often I feel like I don't have time to serve as I would like, but He stopped what ever else He was doing when people needed His service.  And of course, the ultimate service, the atonement for our sins.  It was fantastic and a great reminder for me.  He used a quote from October's conference saying how the service we give on this earth is the rent we pay for being here.  

Then Monday we kept with our tradition and went to breakfast first thing.  This year I wasn't sure I could do Steak N shake, so this year we went to a fun Louisville place called Lynn's Paradise Diner.  Totally funky cool place and yummy food.  Then we kept with tradition and stopped at the Fresh market for some last minute things that looked good and a few left overs from my list.  Then home to cook and prepare.  The boys got much needed haircuts.  Then we had our evening.  Heavy appitizers for dinner, Luke 2, Christmas PJ's and we even remembered to set out treats for santa this year.  Zoe was so excited--she is the perfect age for Santa this year!  

Christmas Day was great.  Our kids have been known to sneak downstairs before, so I think Reed jumped out of bed every time he heard them sneeze all night, just to make sure they were not sneaking down.  In the end, they didn't, but Reed was very tired.  We had a great morning.  We did Santa gifts and stockings, then had breakfast.  Then we did our presents under the tree.  It was perfect.  We really tried this year to not go overboard.  There have been years it took all day to open gifts and they just get so much stuff they can't even be grateful for it.  This year, they pretty much got the Wii.  We think they ended up being surprised and it was great fun.  The rest of the day we played and had to get packed, but it was great.  

Then today, we got up at 4am and drove to KC.  It worked great and we were here by 11am KC time.  The kids did great.  Reed drove to St. Louis and I slept most of that drive, but then I drove to KC.  It's so fun to be here with cousins.  I don't think I've seen Collin since his cousin carson got here!

I can't post pictures here, so I'll add pictures when I get home!