Christmas Morning

Michael here-again this is a couple days old, I'm just posting it now. Blessings on you all.

It was a wonderful Christmas morning. The kids had a great time and it was a joy to watch the younger ones so excited and happy. One of the girls was squealing "EEEEEEE!" the whole time she was unwrapping. One hard thing was that two of our young girls were swamped with presents and one of them was not. The two girls were from a different county and so they got onto two Angel Tree lists on top of what we got them. The one girl only got what we could get her so her gift pile was significantly smaller. She was the one who needed less and so it was good in the long run but it was still hard to see a dissappointed, freckle-faced little girl on Christmas morning. She cheered up pretty quickly though and was able to enjoy the gifts that she did get.
The foster baby was blessed with a sea of toys as well. He saw a pair of shoes that he got and wasn't really interested in anything else after that. He is definitely a shoe man. I see fashion design in his future. The dog got some new tennis balls and an indestructable Kong toy that he immediately begun destroying. He also gave us a Christmas gift of two steaming piles of crap on the floor in the living room. He doesn't do this very often but it was raining hard outside and he did not want to get wet. Nothing says Christmas like the smell of dog poop.
Moving on from that lovely note we had a great dinner. I cooked a turkey roast in the crockpot and then did some broccoli with cheese sauce. Jen made sweet potatoes, orange Jello salad, chips and dip, and some blueberry crisp. Our oldest girl made some pinto beans. I am proud of myself for only slightly overeating during the holidays. I am glad that they are almost over so that I can more easily continue working at getting in good physical shape.
In other news my coworkers and I all passed on our Alpine Tower skills and so we can now lead the kids in climbing and other experiential recreation activities. I am excited. The guy that came on campus to test us was an old school climber with lots of experience and stories. He was actually the one that originally built the towers on our campus twenty years ago. It was a cool experience.
The day that we tested was very busy. As soon as I was finished climbing I was due to appear as a shepherd in the kids Christmas production. Because of my climbing training schedule I had only been able to make it to one practice for the Christmas show so I winged it a bit. It worked out though. As soon as we finished the last note of the last song one of the kids from another house said very loudly "So we're done now right?" Another kid said "that's unacceptable!" and the two boys started to argue loudly right there on stage. It was pretty hilarious.
Well the house is a mess of boxes and paper. Toys are all over the place and the dog is doing his best to try chewing on any little piece of Barbie clothes he can find. The girls made it til almost bedtime last night before they started bickering. We had considered letting them stay up late but then they started fighting and it was to bed as normal. God give us patience as we have more than a week of all of the kids home all of the time. I hope everyone reading had an awesome Christmas and I wish you a happy New year!