We celebrated our family Christmas here the weekend before Christmas. Jeremey started by reading us the Christmas story and talking about why we celebrate Christmas. Then, we opened a few gifts and stockings.
Rebekah modeling part of the tools that she and Aaron got.
Rebekah picked out a wooden train for daddy and she and Aaron colored it and gave it to him for his gift, which he thoroughly enjoyed.Winter Wonderland
We headed up to Orange City to spend Christmas week with Jeremey's family. We had big plans of seeing lots of family, going swimming, and seeing more family. But, due to the tremendous amount of snow they got, most of our plans were cancelled. We did get to see Great Grandma Heronemus on Tuesday and enjoyed visiting her for a few hours and introducing her to Joshua.
Since we couldn't get to Great Grandpa & Great Grandma Groens on Christmas Eve, we attended service in Orange City and then went back and opened presents that we would have had we been in George.
Christmas Day we opened presents and had our traditional meal-egg bake and caramel rolls. While at Grandpa & Grandma's house, Joshua started smiling for the first time. What a Christmas gift!
New YearsThe Smidt side of our family came down over New Years to celebrate Christmas and the "older boys" (Grandpa, Jeremey, and Jeff) went down to Arizona to watch Iowa State WIN their bowl game!
While they were down having fun in the sun, the rest of the family went to Crowne Center in Kansas City and had some fun of our own!
We had Grandpa's apple pancakes and opened gifts on NY Day.
Rebekah and Joshua with his new Iowa State hat
The cousins
Cousin Megan and Joshua
Grandpa Cy getting lots of help opening his stocking