Christmas Morning

Totally forgot I didn't post these.  They're not high quality. Oh well. And some of them are stills from the video. But you get the point.

Christmas Eve

A "Church Clothes" photo & A "new jammie" photo. Stockings hanging, cookies out...  And the rest has yet to be revealed.

This was actually after we got home from church, our first "successful" Christmas Eve service
since 2006
...nobody crying, mama didn't have to leave the sanctuary, etc! Lovely!

we only had 4 hooks, so Roger's and mine are on the same one.

Stockings knitted for us by my "Aunt" Peggy Groover. 

Possessed Phone

See this picture? This is a picture of Ian from Christmas morning. Last year. (AS IN, 2008.)

See the phone in the picture? That cute green doggie phone with candy in it?

Ian broke that phone later in the day on Christmas day 2008. It wouldn't stop making its annoying beeping sound. We tried bashing it, immersing it in water, nothing. So we put it in the freezer.

Yesterday, while cleaning the freezer, I found the sweet little dead doggie phone. And tossed it safely into the garbage. It was dead, right?!

NOPE!

Today, after an entire year plus a week in the freezer, after being immersed in water, stomped on, and other forms of torture, That damn phone started beeping again from beyond the grave!

It took me a minute to figure out where the strange beeping noise was coming from, but I finally narrowed it down to the garbage can... and remembered putting the phone there yesterday.

Unbelievable!

You drop a $200 cell phone into a puddle and it's dead forever. You try to kill a $1 doggy candy phone from Rite Aid and you can't.

Merry Christmas Videos

We've had a nice day! We took a whole bunch of short videos of the boys this morning. These are just a few. Let me know if I need to add captions. Make sure you stick around at the end of Aaron's first look at the tree to see his "happy dance!" Also, Isn't Ian getting articulate? We are loving his communication improvements, but we're also learning some new patience as Ian has hit the "WHY?" stage.

Funny stuff.

Snow on Christmas Eve

Bishop Family Christmas

We went to our first Christmas gathering of the season. (We actually don't have too many this year, which is interesting... we must lose our flavor the more rambunctious kids we have? just kidding...)

It was hosted by Roger's Mom and her husband Bob in New Brighton. They rented a room at the Penn Bistro, which in our opinion worked out perfectly! We thought the room was really nice, the space was the right amount, the food was good, the amount of time was right, etc. We thought it was great! Ian and Aaron didn't break anything, they only spilled one cup of water on the floor, and they were fairly easily contained. (Until they figured out there was a fish tank down the hall...)

The boys fell asleep on the way home, but both woke up when we got here. So they got to use their new plates and spoons to eat some soup before they went to bed.

Here are some photos from the day:



^that's a LOT of presents.



^ Ian and Aaron being silly


^the whole group: Front Row: Marilyn, Bob, Ian, Aaron & I
2nd Row: John, Liz, Waylon, Jeff, Melissa, John, & Roger




^the gift baskets we made: 2 coffee mugs, 1/2 pound of La Prima Coffee (local roaster & our favorite), homemade biscotti, intellegentsia tea, & torani syrup. Since Roger's mom and Bob are tea drinkers, their basket had tea only and local honey instead of coffee syrup. And a gift card to Beaver Falls Coffee & Tea, since they got a little something extra!

We thought the baskets turned out great, and the best part, for us, was they were mostly homemade. I like homemade gifts a lot. Maybe next year we will go 100% homemade and local with our gifts. What do you think? We had fun making them, we spent a lot of time putting them together, and we felt proud to be giving them!

Do you ever hand make holiday gifts? What have you made for people? Did they appreciate it more because it was homemade?