Anderson family Christmas.

Now that many of my siblings are grown and have children of their own, we get together as a family on a day other than Christmas. This year, it happened to be Saturday the 20th. This was our final trip away from the metro area before the baby's arrival. Christmas with the Yorks will be different this year. They live a bit too far to consider traveling this late in the pregnancy. George's sister will be here later this afternoon, and his parents are planning on coming mid January.

We enjoyed the family gathering and were able to spend Friday night through Sunday afternoon at my parents. It is always a blessing when we can all go to church together where my dad pastors and where we all spent many years growing up. Christmas has been so much fun in recent years with more and more children being added to the family.

Hannah was very excited about her Fancy Nancy books from us.
She immediately brought them to us to read to her. It was very special.

Then she wanted Emma to read it to her.

Daniel...smiling as usual. He was very excited about a new movie he received.

Each year...until you have children...my mother gives an ornament for your Christmas tree. She is always so thoughtful, making the ornament relate to the events of the year-This year...we received a house...to recognize the first Christmas in our new home.

We can't remember why Hannah had such a pouty face, I think she was faking. It makes for a cute picture though.

Mom has a tower of stacking/nesting Christmas boxes. I think Abby could have played with them for hours.

All the nieces. Caitlin will be 8 next week. Emma is 5. Hannah is 2 1/2. Abby is 14 months old.

Caitlin. She is growing up so fast.

Daniel and Emma.

All in all a good time was had by all. Lots of family fun and festivities. Such a blessing!

Christmas day was just the two of us at home. Rather than buying each other gifts this year, we purchased a new camera last week that we had been eying for several months. I hope to have better quality blog pictures in the coming posts. We did fill a stocking for each other, and one for Baby York. It was fun to see what each other picked out for her. We then had a nice lunch, followed by an afternoon of puzzles and relaxation. George is home for two weeks, as am I...we are now working on our 3rd puzzle. It has been fun to sit together and work on the puzzles together as we talk to and of course...tease each other a bit too.