Our Crazy, Blessed Life: January 2011

Christmas at the Roth house was filled with love, laughter, and a ton of wrapping paper. Santa was good to the girls. They each got an American Girl Doll. Jayda was beside herself with joy. She'd been asking for her Elizabeth doll for about 3 months and wrote several, pleading letters to Santa making sure he knew what she wanted and why she deserved it (she was a very, very good girl this year). Lilly didn't seem to care much about the doll, but one of the boxes on the ground was a real hit!

Jayda's main gift from us was her talking, light-up princess vanity. Lilly got two bitty babies and a double stroller. Jayda gave hugs after nearly ever gift and kept saying "thank you guys" over and over again. It was very sweet. I was so proud of her and her "attitude of gratitude." She was well-behaved and polite. Sweet and funny and willing to share. Lilly, however, is lucky she's cute.

Russ bought me an insanely BEAUTIFUL watch that I totally adore and I bought him a handgun (44 Special)...because what says "we love baby Jesus" more than a weapon, right?

We were also spoiled rotten (again) by our extended family. Great gifts, thoughtful presents, and handmade items were all strewn across the floor. It looked like Macy's blew up in our living room. It was overwhelming...in a really good way!

Although the gifts were amazing and spectacular, we tried to keep our focus on the real reason we were celebrating...the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. As we all know, it can be an extremely difficult task of keeping Him as our main thought while we're driving in traffic at the mall, waiting in long lines, and stressing over which gift to get for each person. How did we do it (not that we did it as well as we would have liked)?? We had several lessons with the girls about the real reason we celebrate Christmas, discussions about what was so miraculous about Jesus' birth, and some fun "Christ-centered" activities. My favorite was our "gifts to Jesus." We took little ornaments in the shape of presents and wrote on each of them what our "gift" to Jesus would be. Then we hung those ornaments on our Christmas tree so we could see them every day and remind ourselves what we could do to show Him our love. Jayda gave: thankfulness, hugs to sister, and reverence. Russ gave kindness to everyone and more time to family. I gave patience (this one has proven to be an extremely difficult gift to give as apparently I have none. In fact, patience is such a HUGE gift...I only gave the one present. Jesus understands. In my world, giving patience equates to about 1,000 gifts). Lilly gave "not hitting." This too, has proven difficult for her. She's working on it...which, as I'm sure you can guess, is affecting my gift of patience.

Anyhoo - we all hope your Christmas was filled with laughter, love, family, and the knowledge that Christ lives.

Happy Holidays!
PS. I know its a ridiculous amount of photos (which are in no particular order)...but I don't scrapbook so this is my way of remembering how awesome it all was!

Lilly enjoying her gifts while resting.