Christmas Celebrations

Christmas has come and gone, and we had an amazing one!  God has truly blessed us.  In preparation for Christmas, I read the Christmas story from the Bible to Caitlin every day leading up to it, and was constantly reminding her that we are celebrating Jesus' birthday.  I also told her that she received so many gifts out of grace, that is a small reflection of  the grace God showed us by sending His Son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins.  We are still not sure what we are doing about Santa so we didn't even label the gifts under the tree that she woke up to on Christmas morning.  We also started a new family devotional activity on Christmas.  We purchased a journaling ESV Bible for Caitlin and as we read through it together, we are taking notes and writing out what we want Caitlin to remember or learn from a passage, or how it speaks to us.  We will use this Bible as our family devotional guide until she graduates from High School, at which point it will become hers.  Our prayer is that she will realize the Bible is important and that it applies to every aspect of her life.  We also are praying that as she grows, and encounters various situations, she will be able to look back and see how the Bible helped us various situations and served as a guide for our family.  I am excited about this and am praying that it will produce much fruit not only in Caitlin's life, but also in mine and Bryan's life.

Here are some pictures from the different Christmas celebrations!