Advent, Days 8, 9 and 10

This week has been a week of giving!  There is a woman in our neighborhood who runs a ministry for less advantaged kids in the area, and she gave us the opportunity to adopt one of them for Christmas.  We got to buy for a 15 year old girl.  So Monday after school we headed out shopping for her gifts.  I am a little nervous about it, actually.  We've always done angel trees in the past, but have had small children.  I know teens are a little more particular about what they want, so I hope she enjoys what we chose for her!

 

Then Tuesday, we wrote a letter to our sweet Compassion child, Celeste.  I love that the kids get to watch Celeste grow and that she gets to watch them grow.  We love getting updated pictures and letters from her!  We wrote her a special Christmas letter and shared our Bible reading from the day with her.

 

Tonight, we went shopping for each other...or for the kids at least:).  Hunter and I picked out gifts for Charlotte and Grey while Grey and Charlotte went with James to pick out a gift for Hunter.

 

After dinner, it was time to open them!  We never wait for Christmas Day on these gifts:)  Hunter went first...

 Cyber Boxing Robots!

He was super excited, but bummed that we didn't have time to play tonight.  Thankfully, James is working from home tomorrow, because Hunter made it very clear that he wanted to play right after school and that it needed to be with Daddy:)

Then it was Charlotte's turn...

Hunter picked out a Tangled game for her Leapster and a set of Frozen earrings...

Grey just stared at the wrapping paper for a little while, but after the kids helped him a little, he started to tear away...

He got a mini Elmo doll and an Elmo smart phone...

Katie told me today that Grey squeals whenever Elmo comes on tv, so I thought it would be a good gift.

He walked around holding the phone to his neck and saying, "Call Nana" for a while after we opened the gifts...

 

Our readings have been focused on the angel Gabriel's visit to Mary and Joseph's vision in his dream to stay with Mary and give Jesus his rightful name.  We still remember the verse from this story when the kids were in Awana Cubbies, "Give him the name Jesus.  He will be Great!"  He is great!  What a blessing to know him and to be able to teach my kids about him.

 

Tomorrow is another day of giving!  Stay tuned!