A Birthday & Christmas

I recently made our 2018 & 2019 Fegles Five Blurb Books! It always feels so good to hold the hard copy of each blog year in my hands.

What I love most is how much joy the kids get out of looking through them and remembering things. So, even though these following photos already made it into our book, I need to wrap up the end of 2019 here and keep moving forward.

Ben turned nine the week before Christmas! He was pretty excited about that fact!

His buddies Isaac & Evan came to celebrate the day!

And family stopped by too! Granddad and Grandma posing like Ben, ha, love it! :)

Ben and Grandma Chris extending their arms, to hold a place for Grandpa Mike in his absence. :)

Grandma Jill came by the next day too, to take Ben on his traditional shopping trip for a new Lego set. I don't know how I didn't end up with a pic of those two!

We gave Ben a keyboard for his birthday, with headphones, which he was really hoping for. He loves to play piano, and this way he can play his keyboard to his hearts' content for longer periods of time, without having to share the main piano with other family members. :)

Making music with friends! This whole group is impressively musical, so they actually wrote a pretty catchy four part song!

During his speech therapy session, Jude talked about Ben's birthday. I love the friendship my kids have. It makes me smile.

Happy 9th Benjamin!! Your enthusiasm and bright outlook are such a joy to our family! We love your heart and and the fun you bring to our home! xoxo

See these two? They are a gift! I love my older brother and sister-in-law. They are good friends and always ready to lend a hand or open their home. 

The day before Christmas we had our nephews over. Matt and Gina came over with Nora too, to not only add to the fun, but also to lend some extra adult hands. We had lunch and made gingerbread houses with the kids, and Gina played music on her new ukulele.

Jude had a few mandarin oranges that day, ha! :)

The next evening we headed out to Josh's parent's house to celebrate Christmas Eve! I texted Dad and Janet this picture of Josh, commenting on his lap dog, haha! Josh is NOT a "lap dog" kind of guy, so I had fun teasing him. ;)

Grandpa Mike and Grandma Chris had their traditional cranberry bread, crawdad sugar cookies, and nativity story before gifts.

The kids with their great grandparents.

I always want to have a picture with Great Grandma too. :)

The kids were given lots of great toys and things, but they've all especially loved/used their new winter hats!

We got home super late, and got the kids to bed, stuffed stockings, set up their traditional scavenger hunt for the group gift, etc. The kids were up early, bouncing in the joy of Christmas morning. :) I always love watching them give gifts to each other that they thought through and bought with their own saved money. Selah gave Jude a Garfield calendar.

Ben was excited about the Lego sets he got, and here Josh is mimicking the excitement after opening a hiking book from me, ha! ;)

Selah gave me these beautiful wooden bowls that I'd had my eye on.

And we got her a hydro flask kind of as a joke, because she thought it was funny that a water bottle of all things could be "trendy." What's cute is how much she loves it and uses it. :)

I gave Josh this massage tool that is amazing! It seriously feels like you've had a professional massage after 15 mins of use. We've been trading massages ever since. It's the gift that keeps on giving!

We enjoyed relaxing and trying out all of our new toys that afternoon, and then showered and loaded up all of the gifts to head to my mom and Wayne's house. After a lovely meal we sat down to open gifts near the warm fire and Josh and I hit the wall and could not stay awake! All of the hoopla of the late nights and early mornings caught up with us and we fell asleep for a short bit. Here are some pics from that afternoon:

Onto 2020!