Day Three in Honor Eric - known as the blog exaggerator - Week

Tonight we celebrated our own little family's Christmas. We rotate between Ohio & Iowa each year for Christmas so a few years back we started a tradition for our own family. This tradition is the night before we drive to our Christmas destination we open presents at our house. The presents we open are from whichever family we are not visiting (so Iowa presents if we go to Ohio and vice versa...i think you get the drift) and our presents to each other. Tonight we began our evening by taking Christmas goodies to each of our neighbors. The girls took them up to each door and said "Merry Christmas". Our neighbors are good people and they each adore the girls. It has been great to continue building relationships with all of them. Anyways...our evening continued by dining at Applebees. What says Merry Christmas (or "Happy Christmas" if your Ponsi) better than "eating good in the neighborhood"? I guess I should confess that we had a gift card there so it worked just fine. Following Applebees we headed home to open presents. The girls take the presents from our Christmas tree in one room



and carry them to the room with the fireplace. That is where the unwrapping action takes place. The night was wonderful and filled with many memories. Memories such as Ponsi giving crafts she designed specifically for each person in the family. She drew me a "hat that football players where" (that's called a helmet Abs). Other memories abounded like Tori opening the doll she has asked for since October, or the girls excited about the devotional books we got them, or Gretchen's face lighting up every time one of her girls became excited, or the Mace walking around with her brand new Dora toothbrush (the picture of her crying is when we made her put it away). So it was an amazing night. I'm blessed beyond measure and I praise God for allowing me the honor of celebrating Jesus' birth with four beautiful girls. These are the type of posts Gretchen normally does for the family so I won't put too many pictures. I'm sure within the next week there will be many more for your viewing pleasure.