Brown Family Christmas

Lego Warriors

Here's two of my favorite little buddies having the time of their life spending the night together doing basically nothing other than some serious lego construction.

Slumber parties are a somewhat new found treat for Micah. Partially because of his age and partially because, quite frankly, he never ASKED!

Suddenly, about a month ago, he acted quite hurt and neglected as he exclaimed "Savanna ALWAYS gets to have slumber parties, and I NEVER get to!"

Although, I did feel he dramatized the facts a bit, I did feel sorry for the little guy.

So...being the neurotic mom that I am who feels like it is my responsiblity to document on film all important childhood memories, I whipped out my handy, dandy camera and snapped away at all their lego making fun.

This is also my secret weapon to prevent my kids from accusing me of stuff I supposedly "never" let them do as a child. I'm no dummy ~ I'm collecting PROOF to show them what wonderfully, rich childhood experiences they've had! :)

Now, as a side note, since these pictures were taken a month or so ago (YES~ I am VERY behind in my blogging!) Micah has had or participated in about a half dozen other slumber parties with his buddies. Just adding that side note in to help my case later in life as I try to convince him that he was not "slighted" just because he was our second born :0)

Twelve Days of Christmas

So, my crazy friends decided to do a little pranking and express their love for us by reinacting their own version of the 12 days of Christmas ~ complete with all the unexpected gifts and all!
Let me just say, I had the most fun with this gift and trying to guess who my "TRUE FRIENDS" were. In fact, my kids waited expectantly at the windows each day to try and spy to catch our friends 'in the act' of delivering our goodies. Here's a run down of the goodies in backwards order so you can kind of sing along...

On the twelveth day of Christmas my 'true friends' game to me...

12 drummers drumming11 pipers piping

10 lizards leaping

8 milk jug maids
(the 9 ladies dancing never appeared ~ maybe they're Baptist too!)

7 schwan's fish sticks

6 geese laid eggs

5 onion rings

4 bird whistles

3 southern hens

2 turtle doves

and a camper in a RV!!!

Seriously, how great is that????
I love these ladies more than words can express and am amazed at their creativity and love!
They finally "came clean" and revealed themselves at the Candlelight service when the 12 drummers drumming made their appearance after the service was over. I would say that was the grand finale of the night, but Steph's hair catching on fire during the candlelight procession kind of trumped out my drummers drumming!

Christmas Candlelight

For our Christmas candlelight service, we planned a special drama that involved a traditional nativity scene.

I just love this picture of Savanna and Kayleigh playing with John Parker (aka ~ Baby Jesus).
It's as if the angels are protecting their baby.

Eli thought he might like to take the staff home to keep John Parker from pushing the buttons on the TV.

We couldn't have planned it any better than to have baby Jesus clapping when we finished singing to him.

What better way to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior than with a fast food fellowship at Whataburger?

Pictures that I neglected to take but want to remember are :
~The children all taking turns reading the Christmas story from scripture during the service. There is something so precious hearing the story read by a child!
~ The candlelight procession out of the sanctuary that included Stephanie's hair getting caught on fire!
Side note: Burnt hair smells REALLY bad.
2nd side note: Stephanie has a VERY good sense of humor!
~ The multiple spontaneous spend the night parties that occurred as we left Whataburger.
Rachel, we're all still trying to figure out how you ended up with NO children while we all had many extras! :)

Christmas Card Pics {and out-takes}