8

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.

9

An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

10

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.

11

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.

12

This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

13

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

14

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,

and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

2010 is coming to an end. I thought I would try to at least get in one more blog before the start of a new year. Dennis and I have been so busy lately that my computer keyboard longed for my fingers while my monitor cried for attention. Okay, it wasn't that bad but I felt like I had abandoned the blogging world. What has made it worst is now I have so much stored in my mind that I overwhelm myself knowing that I really need like 4hrs to blog and well....I usually get 20min if I'm lucky while the kids are awake, and maybe 30min when the kids are asleep because Dennis wants my attention. :) After the first of the year Dennis and I will begin to regularly blog a few times a week again.

Christmas this year really was beyond exciting. We started listening to Christmas music in November this year which we loved. I also decided that every gift we gave would be hand made (minus one of my brother-in-laws since he refused to get upscale boxes. LOL okay jk). This meant though that making the gifts also took a lot of time. 13 gifts to be exact! I was more excited this year to give my gifts then to receive them (I will blog in the future with pictures of all the gifts). I did learn something though in the midst of design, cutting, sewing, flossing, editing, and baking that I might want to start earlier if I ever again choose to make everyone's gift. :) Many nights that Dennis wanted to enjoy our Christmas lights and watch a movie with me that I was busy sewing away or distracted flossing. All in all, I loved taking this time of year and showing family that we really cared about them.

Christmas was also great this year with teaching our kids a little more about their Savior. Brooklyn's bible stories for school this month were based around Jesus coming to this earth. What has been so fun with Homeschooling is we took a lot of time off to just enjoy the season. This is something we plan on doing every year with all the kids. She did start back this week with a light load of reading, geography, math, etc. Another neat thing about Homeschooling is you can do that. We don't feel she is behind. We feel in fact that she has really gotten to enjoy the holiday. The reason for starting back now and not next week is because I end my 4 month babysitting tomorrow. We enjoyed it but I'm excited to have my kids back and it just be my family. We are planning on doing some fun outings next week that I haven't really felt I could do with another one. Let's just say I didn't have the energy to really do it with another child that wasn't my own.

Finally, we really started a family tradition this year and I think it was a success. We stayed home on Christmas Eve and spent the day making sugar cookies with the kids and frosting them. Dennis worked on coating pretzels in Chocolate, Carmel, and toffy coating. Everything turned out wonderfully delicious. We then bagged up some for both sets of my Grandparents and my Aunt. We played Christmas music and enjoyed the family time in the kitchen together. We also had a real good family friend over who treated us to Chinese food. This might have to become apart of the tradition as well (Although maybe we can treat him next year).

What a blessed Christmas season we had this year. I hope your Christmas was as blessed as ours.