Christ in Christmas

Mommy and Ella at worship, Ella loved all the singing!!!

So proud of Ella. We had an amazing worship service last night where the kids acted out the Nativity story, Ella was an angel (she is on stage in the picture below) After which we sang happy birthday to Jesus and were challenged by Pastor Tom and Pastor Stan to make Christmas about Christ and to celebrate His birth.
We talked about this with Ella before going to bed and told her that we wanted to pray and say Happy Birthday to Jesus before opening anything or doing anything else.
The girls stockings were left outside their doors for them to dig into while Mommy and Daddy slept, that way we all go down to see the tree together. Ella woke us up though and told us that she saw her stocking but didn't want to touch anything in it yet until we said Happy Birthday to Jesus.

Ella woke us up to pray!!! Ella waited before digging into gifts and candy to say Happy Birthday to our Lord.

She makes this Daddy and our Abba's heart smile!

Havoc!

Alright Sammy, I mean "Havoc." This morning as I was chasing Samantha through the house to put her in a Figure 4 Leg Lock and pulling her off the kitchen table (what?!) an old X-Factor character came to mind..."Havoc."
Havoc would shoot plasma blasts that he had a hard time controlling. If I remember right (and it has been a while) he is the brother of Cyclops, leader of the X-Men, and the 2 teams were often at ends with each other even though they were often working for the same side. Ummm...Samantha!

Somehow she has learned to climb on the kitchen table where she really dug into some bananas.

She really wanted to get the beads for the Christmas tree and is really troubled by the "balls" on the tree. It was a 3 way tug of war, of course Ella was "helping." She is a good big sister :-)

If she is all about the balls on the tree, what do you think she does with the exercise ball...which I have turned into a foot rest. Something seems wrong about that.

Ginger, oh Ginger. While I feel that you almost deserve a little harassment by my Havoc for destroying my t-shirt blanket, Samantha is always after her.

Through all her Havoc, though, she is so smart, sweet and a true blessing from God...that is JOY on that face my friends...JOY!