The Beauty of the Everyday.

You probably remember our AMAZING family pictures my friend Leslie took last year when John-Paul was just four days old.

Well, one year later (exactly ... pretty cool how that worked out) my brother Brian was in town with his fancy camera and he snapped some pictures of us doing life together. The more I look at them the more I love these pictures and feel so blessed to have this little window into our of life captured forever.

Christmas 2012

Christmas this year has been full of change for the Elwers.

Partially due to financial necessity but also just due to realizing that if this day is really about Jesus's birth and we need to make room for him {This all started here. With Dave Snow's message "Peace a Christmas" on 12/1/12. You really should listen to it!}

Do we want to be teaching our boys about their savior and his humble beginning or about a man in a big red suit who brings them tons and tons of presents? No matter where you fall in that discusion, we just decided to scale back. We didn't throw away the Christmas tree or cancel Christmas, we just played it simple. {I would be more than happy to scale back further next year ... but we will leave that to be decided later}

Here's our two Christmas Days {one with each side of the family}

Grammy and Papa's Christmas was on the 24th

 If you are at all interested ... we made Paleo Biscuits and Gravy for breakfast ... very yummy!

 Papa reading the Christmas story ...

 Grandma's Christmas was on the 25th

Looking for his name. 

John-Paul's favorite part was of course the wrapping! 

Christmas Super Nintendo ... happens every year and we love it!

Praying you all had a sweet time with family and friends as you celebrated the day that The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. 

Bennett's Christmas Performance

My sweet boy had his first ever performance.

He did not enjoy the wings he had to wear. But he loved singing the songs!

 He only got distracted during this one song which given his family history is doing pretty good!

He also really loves his friends and teachers and was really glad to get a sweet new book.

Christmas Traditions

I love traditions and here's two I didn't want to let pass by without highlighting ...

Every year we get together with a group of friends we've known since high school for what we like to call "Thank-mas". We haven't gotten together with this group since the end of May but isn't it the best when you can just pick right up as of you haven't missed a day?! Such great memories with all these precious friends ... especially with the crazy Norwegian troll that keeps making his way back to the gift exchange each year...

And then there's Dessert Night!  This is always such a treat and this year was no exception! As usual the evening was magical, the tables beautiful and the ladies couldn't stop talking to listen to the singers! Ha ha! {You think I'm joking don't you?!} This year was an extra treat for me because I had absolutely no responsibilities! I just showed up, sat at a table of other moms with young kids and chit-chatted about GMO's, food allergies and preschool learning websites! Ha ha ha! Typical!