December in Review

Our December flew by - here are some pictures from the last month.

St. Lucy day - Miriam was up extra early to bring donuts to her brothers.

William shows off one of the cookies he decorated.

We had a wonderful visit with Grandma Cindy and Grandpa Deacon Ray

 

We decorated our Christmas tree :-)

Winter snow - enjoying the sledding hill. 

Twas the night before Christmas...

 And we went to "Midnight Mass" at 9pm

Miriam had a special "star" hair-do

O Come Let us Adore Him!

Christ our Lord is born!

Christmas morning stockings filled by St. Nicholas!

Christmas Day gifts!

Everyone enjoys their new bean bag chairs!

Wearing their "super" new costumes!

A special gift from William to Dad

Dad got a new shield for his collection :-)

On Christmas day we were blessed to the day with Phil's family including Phil's grandpa who we got to tell how much we loved him which was a blessing because passed away yesterday on December 27th surrounded by his four daughters.  We will miss him very much!  Eternal rest grant unto Richard Steinegger, O Lord, and perpetual light shine upon him.  May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed. Rest in peace.  Amen.   (I unfortunately did not have my camera handy for the family gathering but there were some great family pictures taken and hopefully I'll get copies :-)

Luke playing Mass with new vestments from Aunt Jenny!

Snowman fun!

We are enjoying these beautiful days of the Christmas Octave together as a family and wish you and yours all the blessings of this Holy Season!

An Original Christmas Song by Miriam

Merry Christmas Octave!

On Christmas Eve this year we followed our family tradition of dressing the children in their Christmas attire before putting them to bed so they'd be ready to go for Midnight Mass.

 

Before they settled in for the night, Miriam sang this Christmas Eve song that she made up (with some accompaniment from Luke and Thomas) and I just wanted to share it with you - enjoy!

Getting ready for Midnight Mass

For Christmas Phil suggested we go to Midnight Mass. My response was "no" at first. Midnight Mass meant taking three little ones age four and under and I kind of wanted them to be awake for Christmas Mass and not grumpy on Christmas Day. Yet Phil had a great desire to go toMidnight Mass and Miriam, even on schedule, was pretty grumpy Christmas Eve so we took a leap and made the trip at midnight with three little ones. To make things easier, we dressed the children in their Church clothes before putting them to bed so here is a video of them on their way to bed.

The Midnight Mass was beautiful and all went quite well - all three of the children slept pretty much through the whole Mass and most of the transitions though we were definately grateful for the extra borrowed laps of "Grandpa" Ray and "Grandma" Cindy as three sleeping children would have been difficult to manage on two laps. What a blessing it was for Mom and Dad to be able to enter into the Christmas mystery more fully!

Thank you Jesus, Mary and Joseph for the beautiful Christmas gift!