Christmas Eve Continued...

After our fun day in the snow, we had a little Christmas Eve party with several of our good friends. We sang Christmas songs, played some Christmas Trivia and Christmas Charades, ate lots of dessert... including a birthday cake for Jesus, and of course...read the Christmas story from the Bible. It was a fun time!

Little Christopher LOVED watching Peter play the guitar and sat just like that for quite awhile!

A few of the guys...

Then after everyone left, we let the kids each open one present, as is our tradition on Christmas Eve. It's always new pajamas and something we all look forward to!

The Awesome Adams Kids!

This year we invited three of our friends who are here in S. Korea with us to join our family for Christmas. Since they were staying the night, they had to have new pajamas too....it's Tradition! And since they were staying with the Adams family for Christmas, they were subjected to ALL of our traditions! :)

Later in the night I put the guys to work...they were my 'elves' building toys for Christmas morning...all sporting their new pajamas too!  :)

Then they had to test them out of course...

Finally everything was finished and set up for the morning.  :)

Christmas Eve SNOW!

We were so excited to wake up on Christmas Eve to a winter wonderland! It was beautiful, and so far the first real snow of the season...we've had nothing but flurries that didn't stick up until this point. So of course we bundled everyone up and headed out to enjoy it!

Samuel did NOT like it when we first went out....

Faith Elaina and her sweet friend Lily loved it though!

There were beautiful snow angels everywhere!

After watching all the kids for a bit and seeing them playing and having such a good time, Samuel decided that this cold snow wasn't such a bad thing and finally decided to join them.   :)

He threw several snowballs at Daddy and his brother and sisters!

We played until all of their cheeks and noses were rosey! It was a fun way to start the day!

Advent 2011 Day 23 - Decorating Soldier Treat Bags

Today the kids decorated the little bags we used to stuff full of treats for some of the single soldiers over here that we know. Faithy covered them in stickers....

I forgot to take a picture of them once they were finished! But after we filled them, Joy finished off the decorating with ribbons and candy canes. They turned out cute and the soldiers seemed to really appreciate the goodies! Another family we are good friends with helped us to fill them with yummy things they baked as well!

Gingerbread Houses!

The kids asked me if I put up a picture yet of the 'Gingerbread' (graham cracker) houses that they made in our homeschool co-op class...they wanted to make sure that their grandparents saw them! :) I hadn't yet, so here you go...

Advent 2011 Day 21 - Candy Poppers

A couple of weeks ago we had a friend of our show us how to make these candy poppers in our homeschool co-op class. We thought they were so cute and fun that we'd add them to our soldier goody bags we are making up to hand out Christmas Eve. Daddy did most of this one tonight and they turned out so great!

We just used construction paper, rolled it up like a tube and put candy inside, then wrapped it with tissue paper and tied ribbons on the end. 

I'm so thankful I've got so many helpers to do these things with me!  :)

Advent Days 19 & 20 - Marriage Retreat!

We had the awesome opportunity to go on an all expenses paid marriage retreat this week! It was so nice to getaway for a couple of days and get to spend 2 nights in the Dragon Hill Lodge.  :) Staying in a hotel is always nice...and fun for the kids! And then to not have to cook or pay for meals for the 6 of us on top of that...made for a great break from the daily 'to do' list for this Mama.  :)

The kids had fun classes with activities to do while we were in the sessions, but there was a lot of family free time and we enjoyed a bit of Seoul, went for a nice walk and took in the sights of all the pretty Christmas decorations. 

The kids just loved the hotel, there were so many decorations and lights everywhere. At one point the kids asked if we could count all of the Santa's that were there because we saw so many...

We counted 17!! Just in the lobby and the rest of the first floor hall decor of the shops and restaurants. Now we love St. Nick in our house and enjoy our Santa storybooks but both Joy and Joshua talked about how they were surprised there were 17 Santa's and only 1 tiny baby Jesus that we saw the whole time we were there...and He wasn't even a decoration of the hotel, it was in a nativity set being sold at the gift shop. I told the kids that most public places don't use Jesus as a part of their Christmas decorations anymore because it's offensive to people. To which they replied, "What!? Why!? It's HIS birthday we're celebrating anyway!?"....I'm praying they'll never forget that and will always remember the true meaning of Christmas. :)

We got to stay 2 nights in the hotel and woke up our last morning there to a beautiful view...

We have hardly had any snow here in our part of S.Korea, so even this tiny 'powdered sugar' looking dusting on everything was exciting and beautiful to us! :) It was a wonderful few days away but we are happy to be back home and in our own beds tonight and very excited that Christmas is almost here! :)

Advent 2011 Day 18 - Christmas Stories

Tonight we read several of of our Christmas books together, one of MY favorite things to do! I'm really missing all of our Christmas books that are in storage while we're living overseas, but we collect a few new ones last year to enjoy while we're here in Korea. I'm thankful that my kiddos are always up for some story time. Daddy snapped a picture of me and the girls after we were done reading....the boys were already off and playing by the time we got the camera out.  :)

Advent Day 17 - A Christmas Family Movie Night

Tonight we had a Christmas movie night and watched one of our favorites...How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The kids were so excited to see it again! :)