Goin back....Christmas!

Okay, so I warned you that I was going to backtrack a little to fill everyone in on the last few weeks.

We had a wonderful Christmas this year! We started out by celebrating Jesus' birthday on Christmas Eve at a residential treatment center for children in the foster care system. Our family had carefully chosen and wrapped gifts for an 8 year old girl living there. Her name is Breia and here is the link to her adoption photograph: http://www.heartgallerytexas.com/portraits/158.htm. She is a beautiful girl that needs a loving family, and we were it for the Christmas holiday. It was such an incredible experience for our kids to see how some children spend the holiday's. Not by choice, but because of the situation they were born into. God has big plans for Breia, and we are praying that the right forever family is out there looking for her right now! We ended our time there with a meal of pizza, after Breia herself invited us to share her Christmas Eve dinner with her.

We then headed to church for an intimate candlelight service, full of all the old carols and praise songs we know and love. The evening ended with new snuggly jammies (thanks to Grandma and Grandpa ;-), some unwrapping of gifts, and a bedtime snack.

Christmas day was very relaxing thanks to the crock pot! We had our first-ever Christmas meal in the Johnston home. We have always had Christmas dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's house, and since we stayed home this year it was a pretty relaxed affair. During dinner we shared all the gifts we had received all year long, and realized that God had blessed us many times over. We were all a little homesick for missing friends and family, but enjoyed not having to worry about road conditions :-)

P.S. Tried to add photos, but there seems to be some issue right now. I will try to add them to another post.