Christmas, Madagascar, and Pink Eye...

I never got around to sending out Christmas cards (for the second year in a row) but here were a few pictures that I took of them with good intentions several weeks ago!

I haven't had a chance to get the pictures from the last couple of days off of my camera. I have a few from Christmas morning at our house, but I'll have to post the rest later.

Christmas Eve night, we went to our church for a special service. One of the traditions at our church is for the children to wear their pajamas and go on the stage to sit and listen to a special story. Jaiden looked so forward to it and sat so still and listened so intently. Jeryn on the other hand, pretty much ran laps around the church in his pajamas. By the time we got back to the house, his toes had busted through the enclosed feet of the pjs. I think he outgrew that pair.

Here is Jaiden on Christmas morning, as my mom would say, "proud as punch!"

The one thing Jaiden really wanted was a "princess cook set." We also got Jeryn his own rocking horse because he loves Jaiden's.

On a side note, this was the Christmas that Jaiden learned there was no Santa Clause...It sounds so cruel I know, but Mario told her on Christmas Eve. To be frank, we have barely talked about Santa Clause to her anyway. My parents never made a huge deal of SC to me. In fact I don't remember even believing in him nor do I remember learning that he wasn't real. At any rate, we have always talked to her about the real meaning of Christmas and have never really said much about him. So something was said that night as we got into bed and Mario just said, "Well...he's not real..." I couldn't believe what he had just said, but I went with it. Jaiden showed no surprise or concern, she just said, "Oh, Okay." She was certainly not any less excited about opening gifts on Christmas morning. I don't think she cared where they came from, she was just excited about opening them! :)

I'm sure you think we're awful, but we just want her to be thankful and celebrate our Savior rather than a fake Santa. Every tells their kids at different times, but we just decided to do it now (well, Mario did anyway :) So I explained to her that it was a myth that if you were good, Santa would bring you gifts. I told her that there were lots of children in the world that were good, but would not get gifts for Christmas for one reason or another and that's why we needed to be thankful. She completely understood and we related it to the Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes--how the recipients were good kids, but were much less fortunate and so by sending the boxes they would hear the good news about the only gift we ever really need--JESUS!

These were made about a week before Christmas. We were at Granny & Papa's and she found Papa's Santa suit in the storage room. She looked so cute in it!

Speaking of the shoeboxes, I got an e-mail on Christmas Eve that our boxes went to children in Madagascar!!!!! We were so excited and Jaiden couldn't believe it! She loves the Madagascar movies, and we recenlty had a customer appreciation night at the theatre and she got to come see Madagascar 2. So when we shared with her that the boxes we put together had gone there, she thought that was pretty neat!

We got back from Mom & Dad's this afternoon and I ended up taking Jaiden to the after hours clinic to have her eye seen about. She woke up this morning with her little eye all puffy and swollen and it has looked irritated all day. The doctor said she had pink eye and call in a prescription for her. We are doing eye drops four times a day, which was not something she just wanted to do! But with a little coaxing, she let me. Now I'm just praying that Jamie's family, mom&dad, and all of us don't get it!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and spent lots of time with your families!