LINK FAMILY: Pre-Christmas Celebrations

Cousins: Kendall, Mckenna, and Makenzie:

We actually started our Christmas celebrating early, on the Sunday before Christmas. We left early Sunday morning to get to church with Mimi and Pappy and then had dinner at Gram Hughes. The girls left with a plethora of Hannah Montana items: shirts, purses, jewelry boxes, barbie, microphones, headsets, as well as some clothes and cute blankets. Jason had to come back home to work Monday & Tuesday, but the girls and I stayed at my mom's.

Monday, Mimi and I took the girls to the mall and then stopped to visit Aunt Whitney and Mckenna. For dinner we got to go to my favorite restaurant, the Villa! Yum!

Tuesday, we stayed home and visited. (I actually worked on my website a bunch.) The church I grew up in (across the road from my parents house) has ALWAYS had a Christmas Eve Eve service (that's just what I call it) and even after going to college and to a new church, we've always gone to that service and then to Gram Younkins' for late snacks and visiting!

The Candlelight Service

Jason came back to Freeport during the middle of the service (perhaps this should have been a tip off to what I'm about to tell you, but I didn't notice.) After the service, while we were walking back home, I put my hands in my pocket and found some keys. I stopped right away thinking someone from church must be the owner of these keys and would be worried when they couldn't find them. Then I thought (when I felt a thin plastic tag), hmm...they must be Gram's...she had just gotten a rental car that morning. So I held the keys up into the light and I saw "Subaru Tribeca" (which we had test drove at our friends car dealership a few weeks ago) - so I say to Jason, "Didn't my car get done in time today?" [It was having its oil changed that morning, and I thought maybe Matt had lent it to Jason to drive.] And he says No...and just looks at me. So after saying "what?" a few times, we had pretty much made it back to my parents and I saw it in the driveway!! So after last week when I saw all the red bows on a few car lots and said Who really gets a car for Christmas...now I can say, ME!

So clearly this picture is back at home...and after a few trips in the mucky snow!!:

My cousins daughter Caroline, and her Pappy (my Uncle Jim:)

My Gram Younkins:

Christmas Eve we spent relaxing and playing with the girls (Mimi and Uncle Brian had to work) until everyone came over for dinner. After a quick dinner, the girls were super excited to give out the presents they brought. And of course they loved getting gifts too! They got MP3 players from Uncle Tyler (already loaded with Hannah songs); craft stuff, clothes, doll clothes and games from Mckenna, Aunt Whitney and Uncle Brian; crying doll babies, books, a balance beam, and doll changing/bathing center from Mimi & Pap.

Here is Makenzie with her MP3 player (which she thinks doubles as a microphone) singing Best of Both Worlds...if you have ever seen the theme song on the show, she is dancing like Hannah when she raises her arm on stage right before the chorus!! Oh she is too funny!: