Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Leading up to Christmas 2010

Our boys' Abuelitos, Pika and Lito, came to celebrate Thanksgiving with us in Kentucky and all three of our boys had such a great time kicking off the Christmas season with them! We love Christmas and the advent season leading up to Christmas. We always want to highlight this time in our home and make it memorable. Here are some pics...Pika cuddling with a sleeping Noah.
Lito happy with his third grandson.
Eli loves to sit and read books.
JJ playing hide and seek under the laundry basket :)
Feliz Navidad!!-- Merry Christmas from the Greene Valenzuela Family!!!
Our precious little Noah outside in the snow for the first time!
This was also Eli's first time out walking in the snow and he wasn't too convinced with it! It was actually veeerrry cold, so I can't blame him. :)
Much better, headed inside with Lito.
Warming up on the couch with Lito and watching Chuggington.
Pika showing Eli how to draw. It is such a joy to sit and teach Eli how to do so many things...he is so intent about learning.
A Christmas tradition from my childhood- baking and decorating Christmas-shaped sugar cookies- being passed on to my boys :)
They were very helpful...got very flour-y...and Eli kept sneaking dough into his mouth!
"You have to wait Eli!"
Just the start of Pika's creations...yuuuummmy!!!
Finally eating a cookie!
JJ finished his cookie sooo fast! mmmm...
Another Christmas tradition in which Lito and Pika joined in-- picking out our real Christmas tree.
Our tree-- all lighted and trimmed-- with our Ecuadorian nativity. Our house looked so empty when we took this down and JJ did not like it...he kept saying he wanted his Christmas tree back.
Since we don't have a fireplace or mantle, this became our new decoration for our stockings this year.
Bright-eyed, long-haired JJ :)
Smiling Noah
Yet another Christmas tradition we enjoyed with Abuelitos-- going to Lights Under Louisville. It is so much fun driving in our car, windows down, through the MegaCavern, listening to Christmas music and looking at a wonderful display of Christmas lights!
The Friday before heading to North Carolina, on the spur of the moment, we decided to take our boys to get haircuts. We loved our boys with long hair, but now we love our boys in their sharp short hair cuts! :) Here they are having fun in the tub after their cuts.
JJ's smile is so contagious!
The Saturday before we go to North Carolina for Christmas, we choose to celebrate Christmas in our home with our little family. This year, our boys woke up to this sight under their tree.
Eli loved his tricycle! He kept going back to it, sitting down and saying "bike!" "bike!"
JJ was happy with his big boy bike but, of course, his attention was mainly on his new Thomas the Train track.
Helping daddy open his fire pit. We can't wait to use this outside, have people over, sit by the fire and make smores! :)
Daddy with his three sons (JJ showing Noah his new toy)
Trying to get Noah interested in his Skwish...he is grabbing onto it now, but still not at the playing stages yet :)
Our boys on their bikes (sorry for the blurry pic!). We can't wait til the weather gets a little better for us to go outside and have fun with these!
Our boys got slinkies in their stockings. These are them after just a few hours of play...can you guess which is which?! :)
Our best Christmas present this year!!
Our growing baby Noah
First Christmas
Intent look from our precious son
This is a pic from one of our services leading up to Christmas at First Baptist Church Fairdale. We had a wonderful season of Advent, culminating in a beautiful candlelight Christmas service.



Just a shot of our handsome big boy JJ :)

Our favorite tradition which begins December 1st in the Greene home is Advent. We have a wooden advent calendar, which Josh made several Christmases ago, and every night before bed we gather together on the couch, read a portion of the Christmas story, pray, sing a Christmas carol and our boys get to lift a flap on the calendar to discover a little treat. Our boys looooved this time and always got so excited when we told them it was "advent time"...they still ask for it even now! As parents, perhaps the best part of this time and even the whole Christmas season, was singing "O Come Let us Adore Him" with our boys and hearing JJ sing with a huge smile on his face, and Eli finish off the song responding to mami's question by saying the sweet name of JESUS! Here is a video of the song portion of one of our advent times:

Our family Christmas celebration was topped off with a big treat for our boys-- Christmas Krispy Kreme donuts!!! Here is a video of our two oldest enjoying their Christmas treats!

1 comment:

Carolina Girl said...

Josh and Val, you are both so very blessed. The pictures are wonderful. Thank you for putting a smile on my face this morning by sharing some Christmas in January. Also, thank you so much for our Christmas card this year. Prayers and love to you all! The Kisers