Day 359: Silent Night

Yes, I'm a day behind in posting this week, but I figured the week is going to be super quiet, so I'll catch up sometime.  Jared and Benaiah are dogsitting/house sitting while Gary and Leah are on vacation, so it's even more quiet at our house.  Not that the other 3 kids don't make noise, but well, after the chaos of the last week or so, it definitely feels different.  I needed a silent night on Christmas night because of the chaos and having a runny nose reemerge through it all.  But we managed.  Christmas Day was slower and quieter than Christmas Eve.  No one had to rush off anywhere.  We could watch each person open their gifts slowly and even open the inner packaging as well.  We had a wonderful egg sausage casserole to eat, as well as the candies from our stockings.  Jared had a roaring fire going from Christmas Eve, through the night and half of the day on Christmas.  It was so hot that I was sweating and the electric heat didn't come on at all!  I'm so glad he's been able to have this little project of building fires.  Those who have gifts of intellect also need something hands on to use the other side of their brains.  It's why Gary will go on mission trips and work on construction projects or do yard work at home or even repaint and redecorate his house.  The brain needs to rest.  And so does the body, so I'm looking forward to this week of no appointments so we can recover.

Life is good, God is good, and Christmas was merry.

We took the time to get a couple of pictures in front of the trees at church after the Christmas Eve service.  These cousins never have enough time together, but they love ach other very much!  Justin hated wearing the vest, and Keturah wasn't fond of the dress, but they made it through.

Aww, Christmas card worthy?  Yup!

Abishai thought the people in the manager scene need to meet Captain Phasma, who is one of the bad girls of the Imperial Forces from Star Wars VII.  Everyone needs a little Jesus (or a lot) right?

Time to light the Christmas Eve fire!

Ready for Santa.

It was Keturah's turn to write the note to Santa now that she's been writing full sentences for English and Words class at co op.

And the plate and cup are empty!

Santa came!

The Chef hard at work making a wonderful casserole.  I ended up wrapping some of the gifts I wanted him to wrap for a kid because he was doing a great job making the casserole work out nicely.  I'd rather wrap than cook any day.

This year, we had a very special new elf, Justin, who admitted he doesn't believe in Santa Claus anymore.  He was very saddened by that fact though.  He's 11 years old.  It was time.

Christmas morning!  I thought we had beaten the kids by getting up first, but apparently, Justin was up at 5:30 building his Tie Fighter and Keturah had gotten up before Abishai and sneaked out to get her stocking at 7.  Abishai squeaked awake at 7:45.  And then proceeded to eat to a Lindt chocolate ball in two bites in our bed.  Yum!

Santa brought Frozen themed underwear!  It was on her list.

Most of a tie fighter.  We didn't tell him not to build it, but I was hoping to get pictures of it has he worked on it.  He was then disappointed when I took lots of pictures of Keturah making her Grand Hotel.  I had to remind him that this was the consequence of waking up early and working on it before I woke up.

Special pens for drawing and BB8 socks!

Abishai's toy was some mini Thomas trains.  He needed a flat service to put them on while we were in our bed, so Jared grabbed this board.

Abishai thought it was part of the set, so he took it out of our room with his trains to play with it.

Bacon topped pork sausage and egg casserole.  Yum!

Santa came.

Tag says Beautiful Bride.  And it contains a lovely card and even more precious note from my husband to me.  His words always mean so much to me.  It's my love language and his way with words is what drew me to him.  They make my heart skip a beat each and every time.

This tag reads, "My Forever Girl: Because "Puppy love" doesn't have to get old."  Awww!

Why yes, that tag that reads "Forever Girl" is taped to an orange bucket.  Classic Jared move.  Always the unexpected and unique.  Just another reason why I love him so!  He's not like anyone else I know!

Yes, the baby can make coffee!

Benaiah's stocking gift were more ties for his collection!

Abishai tried to eat Phasma's head!

Two of our babies.  Again, she wears the hat all day every day.

Benaiah even bought us some gifts this year with the money he earned from mowing this summer.  He got Jared a new teapot.

And Benaiah got me a coffee mug that looks like a camera lens!

I saved three bags of candy corn from October because Justin loves them!  But whoops, the whole bag came apart when the opened it.  Abishai was scooping them up by the handfuls to eat them.

A mermaid Barbie!  She can be a mermaid or surfer!  Came with a surfboard and Barbie's hair can change color with ice cold water.

Most be very comfortable to open a gift, don't we?

More candy corn yummies!

The very last of the puzzles that my parents bought for my kids.  I'm not sure how this one got saved for over 7 years, but it did.  They bought Justin numerous Thomas puzzles and we have a bigger rainforest ones.  They are incredible sturdy and the pieces come in three sizes based on age and ability.  Great brand of puzzles!

Momelinda!  It was my Stephen Amell Fight Cancer shirt I bought myself.  I also gifted myself my printer I got a few months ago.

Never too old for a new nerf gun!

Never too young, either.

Abishai's big gift was this car carrier that holds 100 cars.  I read some reviews that it breaks easily, but I didn't care and I'll keep a watch on the latches and such.  He LOVES it!  No need for clothes at Grandpa's house, just bring your cars!

This was under the orange bucket - a pencil bouquet!  The story goes that when Jared and I worked at Staples together for the fall semester of 1999, while we were dating, he bought a bunch of pencils and a pencil holder from the clearance rack and called it a pencil bouquet.  I had to really think about it to remember it because yes, that was 17 years ago, but yes, I do very vaguely remember that gesture.  And again, this is Jared's uniqueness shining through.  I like that he even bought bright colored erasers to be the flowers and the pencils without flowers are the greenery you get in a bunch of flowers (his suggestions).  Sweetness!

Justin ended up with two more Lego sets because I had one stored away and he was so generous with his money and buying gifts for friends that I wanted to reward him.  So, in total, Justin got 5 Lego sets this Christmas.  Again, in the Johnson household, Christmas is spelled L-E-G-O.

Justin finishing his tie fighter and Benaiah is Building a Bionicle Lego set we gave him (again from the closet stash).

Abishai had to go deep into the box to get all his cars out of it.

And apparently we also love movies because we ended up with 9 new movies!  As of this writing, they have already watched "The Secret Life of Pets" and "Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens."

So...many...cars!

Mr. Extrovert is exhausted from all the excitement and people time.  He's had great naps, but he gets so jazzed up with people that he's just needing to chill from a few days to recover.

Keturah starting her big Friends Grand Hotel Lego set.  1500 pieces.  Start time was 11 am on Christmas morning.  She worked on it almost non stop until bedtime 9 hrs later and still wasn't done.

Time for an epic battle from Star Wars VII!

This set is so big that there is 11 bags of Legos to go through!  Lego has become smart and with the bigger sets, they group the Legos in a few steps at a time so you don't have to do as much sorting.

So tired.

First floor of the hotel including a turnstyle entrance!

Christmas pasta thanks to Aldi's!

Back of the first floor with a grand piano, chandelier, singing stage, coffee bar, front desk, table and chairs, flowers, a suitcase cart, a taxi cab, and food cart.  And that's just the first floor!  More floors tomorrow!

I think that's it for Christmas Day.  We took naps in the afternoon, worked on Lego sets, watched Star Wars and cleaned up the house in general.  Now I have to catch up on loading pictures and blog writing.  Good night!