Motivation

I've been asked a few times recently what happened to my blog. I'm not sure. I've lost the motivation I guess. I waffle between feeling like no one reads, and then, what if everyone reads, and I'm over-sharing? Still, I know there are a few of you out that there that look for updates, so I'll try to do a better job, at least with pictures.

We had our second Christmas in Germany this week. Last year was our first Christmas here, but since the boys and I were home at the beginning of December we celebrated twice, and so our Christmas here was a bit of a non-event. This year, I knew if we were going to avoid feeling really lonely and homesick on Christmas, we were going to have to be purposeful about it, and really make it exciting for the kids. I think it was a success. We did lots of fun things leading up to Christmas like baking cookies, advent calendars, an advent wreath, and making gingerbread houses. Really the whole month of December was like one long Christmas celebration for us. Our families were really generous sending us Christmas presents both from the US and through Amazon, so we were very blessed with a full Christmas tree and lots of things to open Christmas morning. The boys are finally old enough to really understand what's going on with Christmas, and that was a real joy to experience.

Our Christmas tree surrounded by presents!!

James and David trying out their new "shaving kits"

This is pretty much how every present opened went. They were so excited and happy about everything!