Christmas on the 30th

Well, while Levi's outside helping haul off cow manure, I'm going to (finally) wrap up my blog posts from Christmas.  

The weather was beautiful for the entire week between Christmas and New Years and lucky for us it's continued on for another week.

 We got to have Rylee out at the farm on my birthday.  It was fun to have her here and watch the three of them play together.

 I got a new lens for my camera from Ben for birthday.  It's very exciting because now with one lens I can shoot up close or far away!  For example, I was standing three feet away from Noah when I took this photo:

 and with the same lens, I opened the back door and took this photo of Bruce, Levi and dad from about 60 feet away.

 Later in the day, the Epp family gathered for our Christmas gathering.  As the sun was setting, the second cousins got a quick game of football going.

 And then once it was dark, but not quite everyone had arrived yet, we thought since all the kids were gathered we should take a group photo.  It was quite the challenge, but we got some decent photos and some good laughs.  One with smiles:

 and one silly photo (I love Delaney's belly in these photos - she'll appreciate that someday....):

 After a delicious meal and before opening presents the kids sang a few songs.  My boys actually agreed to sing a song together!  They sort of wanted to melt away into the floor from embarrassment, but with some added encouragement from grandma they made it all the way through. I think they sang "Away in a Manger" but it's been long enough ago that I can't quite remember.

 Then we had one cute Angel Band perform for us (who needs rhythm instruments when you can use cooking utensils?) :

 It was a wonderful evening and the children played really well.  There may have been some running and the house was unusually loud, but it was good to be together.