"Jesus, You are the reason that we celebrate Christmas"




It's hard to fit everything that we want to do inside one tiny month and still stop and remember why...

we make a manger scene to remember every year - maybe some year it will be fancy or more life-like, maybe some year we will figure out how to slow down and live December deliberately... but what if we never do?! What if it's always hectic and rushed?! What if we're always irritated at trying to fit too much into so little time?! Then we'll be glad that we started the phrase "it's all about the baby" when the kids were little and trying to figure out who Santa Claus is, and what presents they'd get. Even if we never really "get it", it's still... ALL ABOUT THE BABY! And frankly, isn't that a great picture of our lives? We try, sometimes we really pay attention and try, but that's no guarantee that we captured God's perspective or grasped His motives. The attempt is still refreshing.

With that, here is a glimpse into our reality of the Christmas season - and Aidan's birthday!


Here is the Town and Country we used while the insurance settled after the wreck - more importantly, on top of the minivan is our first ever Armstrong Christmas tree!! As a family we picked this fine evergreen and Daddy sawed it down and tied it up. We didn't head into the wilderness to find it because there was a handy U-Cut right here in Damascus.


Some day we shall have to write a book on Creative Ways to Make Money - here's one of the latest, but not our favorite: Buy clawfoot tubs off Craig's List and refinish them in our own shop and sell them for a profit. It's a good money-maker, if anyone's interested on learning how! Call (503)740-1755 to pre-order your instructional DVD now. (That would be idea #2 and less labor-intensive.)



Our new ride! A '99 Chevy Tahoe! We had a 3rd seat installed to fit our whole crew and then met a safety specialist at the local fire dept to make sure we were all buckled in as safely as possible. I learned a lot! and the specialist was very helpful and not critical of my past mistakes (which was nice) - actually ran into him at church later that night! Bonus!!



We have an annual tradition of making Gingerbread Houses - this year we teamed up to make two houses, Aidan and Mom vs. Camten and Dad, and a deluxe dog house from Shad. I didn't write "vs" by mistake either, it turned into a decorating contest! We demanded that our visitors choose the winner all throughout the season, and now I'm wondering why I even brought this up. Forget I mentioned anything. The middle one's the cutest by far, don't you think?!




Happy Birthday, Aidan!

We really woop up A-Bear's birthday so that he'll remember it after Christmas. He wanted a Cars theme, so he had a cool cake with Lightning McQueen and red balloons (and red candles, red ribbon, red sparklies if we count all the Christmas stuff everywhere, too, that totally fit in). This year we were happy to find him a cool ride with bumpin' speakers. Aidan loves speakers!! We have no idea where he got that.










We had a very nice, quiet visit with Grandpa and Grandma at their home on Christmas Eve. We were bringing quite the crowd all by ourselves, so it was nice to not be as overwhelming as we might have been. Even better, we got to have a great visit!! Camten had some one on one time with his Great-Grandma that he really enjoyed.




Here are a few highlights from our Christmas day...

Camten's first construction gift out of four!!



Trinity's first cell phone!







Cool head swag from Uncle Dwight and Aunt Kristi








Party time! at the chocolate fountain










I had to take a picture of turkey that turned out looking like it was off National Lampoons Christmas Vacation - mostly because I hope all my future turkeys look a whole lot better!!!!