Christmas Eve!

Today has been a great day! The girls and I made and decorated cookies while Morgan worked over at our new land, and then we all got ready to go to our first candlelight Christmas Eve service at church!
I decided at the last minute not to take my camera. I just took these with my iphone, thus the horrible quality. I just wanted to enjoy the service though and not worry about taking pictures. It was so beautiful the way they had all the candles all around and with the Christmas tree all lit up. At the end, we all got to light our candles and the girls thought that was really neat! We were just making sure that Lily held hers up so as not to burn the church down or anything. LOL!
The girls don't normally go to "big church" with us, because they have their own kid's church. Lily kept talking and asking loudly if it was over yet. Ha! I almost started laughing during the prayer because she's such a little stinker! It was really special though because we did the Lord's Supper. You can see in the picture, they had the bread and cup sitting on the table and each family got to go up one at a time. That was my girls first time to participate.
It was a great excuse for them to wear their pretty dresses again. And they'll wear them to Grandma's tomorrow too! I found myself during the service just being really moved, because it still reminds me of God's awesome faithfulness, every time I step back and not take for granted the fact that my family is in church. It still amazes me how the Lord worked. I can look back over the past year and see so many times that the enemy tried to convince me that church was not the place for us. But through it all, the Lord always made sure to have the right people, His faithful servants, who would not let us give up. There really are no words to describe what being a part of that kind of family is like.

So, after the service, we went out to eat and then we came home and the girls changed into their PJ's so that they could open their presents from us. We have always opened our presents on Christmas Eve. It's just easier that way, so the girls can wake up Christmas morning and see what Santa brought and then we usually head right over to my in-laws to open presents and have Christmas lunch with them.

I'll be back later to share our cookie decorating pictures and opening presents. I hope that everyone has a very Merry Christmas tomorrow!!!