~The Lord gave us a good Christmas...Part 1~

Thank you for all the nice Christmas wishes!  It was fun hearing from each one of you!
~We found out that on Christmas EVE in Argentina...every.one.sets.off.fireworks! You have NEVER seen or heard more fireworks in your life.  It made "Fourth of July" look like a couple kids with sparklers! =D  It seemed like EVERY one of the over 13,000,000 people in our city of Buenos Aires was setting off HUGE fireworks!  Every.where.you.looked. there were beautiful lights and LOUD sounds!  =) It was really neat.  Phillip bought a few to do on our roof with our kids.  (I didn't get a picture of the Bigger ones that we shot off.)
It was COLD so please pardon Noah's pink coat that Sarah loaned him.  You see Mary was already asleep in the room where his coat was.  The amazing thing was that our Mary WHO AWAKENS at the slightest sound...SLEPT through the HUGE LOUD fireworks that were going off on top of our roof, RIGHT beside our windows, and ALL AROUND US... and that lasted for 30 mins. =)  She slept nearly all night that night!  Wow!  Let's do fireworks every night.  HA! It's supposed to be VERY HOT right now...and has been in the 90's but Kimberly WISHED for some colder weather for Christmas and Jesus sent us some.  We enjoyed drinking hot choc. and watching fireworks on our roof. =)~

~Now...The stockings socks were all filled!~

~CHRISTMAS DAY!!!!  4 of our children with their stockings!  (Pardon their "square eyes"...they had just awakened.  Sarah saw this "hat" head band and loved it. =)

~We enjoyed a yummy breakfast of eggs, (with cheese and ham), grape fruit which we haven't had in YEARS, and my homemade cinnamon rolls.  After we enjoyed a good service filled with God's sweet presence...it was picture/gift time.=)~

~Sweet little Mary.  It was like it was her "first Christmas"...since she was so tiny last year.  It was so fun to see her cute little smiles when we were opening gifts.  She loved all of her gifts.~

~Me playing some fun Christmas carols!  We had fun singing some Christmas carols together.
(Do you like our "2 stool piano stand?" We couldn't bring the stand to our keyboard with us. =)~

~Our family~

~My sweetheart and I.  (My fun skirt was a gift from him to me.  It's a double sided wrap skirt/outfit. There's about 6 different ways you can wear it.  We've seen several ladies here in Argentina wearing these.
= )

~Before opening our gifts. 
(Explanation of our gift wrapping:  If you know anything about my Moma...you know that I grew up in a house that could easily be in a Victorian Magazine! =)  Each year her gifts under her tree are wrapped beautifully and with matching paper!
So, it took some adjusting for me to find no Christmasy wrapping paper sold in the stores here in Argentina, or when I finally did find some paper it was TINKY rolls of paper...that weren't my style.  Thankfully, the big grocery store we shopped at for gifts had rolls of FREE gift wrapping paper for each customer to tear off some and wrap up the gifts they'd purchased there before they left the store.  The only bad thing was...that it was a different style/color of wrapping paper every time we went. =)~

~We got these 2 adorable chairs for Elijah and Mary.  (They don't have a lot of keepsake type things to one day pass down to their children like our other children do.)

~Sweet Mary~

~Elijah and Mary enjoying their chairs.~

~Our 5 wonderful kids.~

~Do you think Kimberly needs BIGGER glasses?  It was just a fun "white elephant gift" for her to open.~

~Elijah and his glasses.~

~Mary loves her little stroller she got!~

A couple silly quotes from our kids:
One day Noah was sitting at our dinning room table eating with us and he was dreaming of some small toys that he had just seen at a store that he wanted to buy.  So, in his little mind he was trying to figure out HOW he could earn some more money to get them.  Out of the blue he said to Sarah, "I could PULL MY TEETH OUT  and play Spanish Rosetta Stone to make some more money."  It struck us funny when he said he could PULL HIS TEETH OUT (to get some money under his pillow)!
(By the way...He got all of those small toys for Christmas...plus more!)

Daddy was brushing Elijah's teeth...and when he opened his mouth...his throat made a noise.  To which Elijah told Daddy..."I have a Kitty Cat in my mouth and it just meowed!"

Part 2 of our Merry Christmas coming up soon! =)