It was a busy Christmas season for our family. Parties, traditions, movies, temple square and friends. We feel so blessed and we are grateful for the real reason that we are able to have this beautiful time of year to celebrate. I had an idea to to have the kids do service each day before Christmas, but I quickly realized that my schedule didn't quite allow me to do it everyday, the kids were sick or I was too lazy. We did manage to get in a few days of service. One of the days we were to put money in an envelope and give it to a random stranger at walmart. I had the kids pray with me to make sure the money went to someone who really needed it. We arrived at walmart and walked around for a time. We were ready to give up when right before we got to the door to leave we saw a woman who looked sad and had tears in her eyes. I asked the kids if we should give it to her and they all said "yes!". We handed the envelope to her and said that this was for her. She replied "are you sure?". The kids said yes and she said thank you. We left and ran to our car. I know it is a small act of service, but for some reason I truly feel that this woman either needed this money or just needed to know that someone cared. I hope that our kids were able to learn that service comes in all types of packages. That family, friends, neighbors and random people can all be recipients of acts of kindness.
Besides our service we were able to fill our time with so many activities:
We began with the ginger bread house. This is our kids favorite tradition. Tommy ate more frosting than anything else. Caroline was bossy pants making sure everything was perfect. Rexy wanted to follow daddy in everything, if dad did it he did it. 
Christmas cookies are a must at our home. We had the Reeses and the Tadje family come enjoy the tradition. We definitely had some beautiful cookies, but first place went to Tom.
Christmas morning was so much fun. We had grammy and papa sleep over, new jammies, an American Girl doll, football attire and the best gift of all was a trampoline. The kids went crazy over this gift. They were screaming and cheering. Rexy even had to sit down his excitement was that overwhelming. We all laughed our heads off. I love Christmas with little ones. It is so magical!
