Christmas Round One

Our Christmas parties officially commenced this weekend, with Mom & Dad's party Saturday evening, and the "big" Dwyer party last night. Before I get to the actual party pictures, I just had to share these two shots of Violet's first experience with tights. . . 0-3 months, whatever! She certainly didn't seem to mind them, however.

Who needs a dress when the tights cover 90% of her little body?

Before we get started with the presents at Mom & Dad's, we always open the Bible to Luke chapter 2 to read about the true meaning of Christmas and why we celebrate. This year, Jackson did the honors of reading, and what a great job he did, even with words like Quirinius!

Tyler & Kyle listening intently to the Christmas story (even Tyler, who rarely ever sits still!).

Uncle John took care of Violet while we distributed the gifts.

Little Brynn looking so cute in her Christmas outfit!

I'll give you a re-cap of some the favorite gifts. . . My boys LOVED their "Cars" cars.

And Oliver's "Cars" motorcycle was a hit with all of the kids.

Jackson getting cozy in his "snuggie". . .

And Brynnie on her rocking horse.

The boys playing with Oliver's firetruck couch-turned-bed. . .

And Joy got all of the kids these really special, hand-painted step stools. They loved taking the letters out and putting the puzzles back together.
Aren't these cool??

The kids all loved their hoodies from Grandma Cheryl. . .

And Grandma Cheryl loved her canvas of her grandkids. (Note: We took these pictures over 2 months ago, and it has taken some serious willpower for me to NOT post/share them!)
And my favorite Christmas gift of all, my precious little Violet. . .

And my boys too, of course!
Here's our whole crew; we just keep growing!

Fast forward to Sunday evening for the "big" Dwyer Christmas hosted by Russ' Uncle Terry & Aunt Lisa. Violet really made the rounds and was loved on by everyone! First Grandma Jo got her time with her littlest grandbaby. . .

Then Ella gave lots of hugs. . .

And Dawson wasn't going to miss his turn!

Gift time!

We did a movie exchange this year, and here the kids are showing off which movie they get to take home!

I SO love this time of year!

Freedom from Hardware!

(posted on CarePage)
Rejoice! The pins are out! Violet was taken to surgery at 11:30, and Dr. Singhal came to talk to us at about 1:30 to let us know that everything went smoothly. When I asked him if we could have the hardware to keep as a 'souvenir' (one of my friends had the great idea of making it into a 'Baby's First Christmas' ornament), he said he had to chisel it out and it was broken, so we wouldn't want it. Oh well, I'm just so glad it's not sticking out of Violet's head anymore!

She's sleeping very soundly now, and seems so peaceful. I can't wait to get her out of bed so I can hold her without having to worry about hurting anything. Hopefully she'll wake up soon.

The plan is to stay here overnight, and hopefully go home in the morning. We'll see infectious disease before we go and have some blood work done. We have an infectious disease clinic appointment for Friday; I'm really hoping they don't make us drive back up here for that, but we'll see.

My baby girl has had pins sticking out of her head for 70 days. I'm almost giddy right now with the freedom I'm feeling. Praise God for Dr. Singhal, Children's Mercy, and of course, our precious child. I'm just so thankful! What a fabulous Christmas present!

This is the cute mural on "Reunion Avenue" where we got to meet Violet after surgery.

And. . . Ta-Da!! Just a little red dot where the pin was sticking out. They don't even put a single stitch on the hole; it's really pretty amazing how small it is.

And just to prove that both sides are free of pins, here's the right side. (By the way, the marker on her face was to mark her right eye because Dr. Singhal probed her tear duct to open it up; it's been blocked since birth.)And her beautiful little peaceful face. Sleep tight, sweetie.

The Perfect Christmas Gift

Yesterday was the kids' Christmas program at church, called "The Perfect Christmas Gift" and I was so impressed with how well it went!

As you can see, Calvin is very excited to get started! Oliver, not so much. . .

But once the program started, he quickly realized his true passion in performing! It was adorable how well he sang "Away in a Manger" -- He stood there so proud of himself. He was a real show-stopper!

The 3- and 4-year olds (plus Oliver who we couldn't keep off the 'stage') doing their part of the program. Notice they all have gift bows on; they looked so cute! (Calvin is in the back row and Tyler is in the front row right by Oliver.)

The "Holy Family" with the shepherds and wise men. If you look closely, you'll see Baby Jesus . . .

. . . is none other than our little Violet! I'm told this was the first time our church has had a real baby for the manger. She did great -- flailed her arms enough to let people in the back know she was real and cried just enough to be realistic, but not so much that it was distracting (we practiced).

I was so proud of all 3 of my kids; they did so well! And as the kids told us in the program, Jesus is the perfect Christmas gift and one size fits all!

Our Living Nativity

Jo had this great idea to make our own "Living Nativity" with the grandkids this year. I think the pictures turned out really neat (Don't miss Violet as Baby Jesus). Here are Jo's grandkids:

And here we replaced Ella & Ross with Tyler & Brynn to get the pictures with Mom's grandkids:
I think these pictures are just precious, don't you??

Silver Dollar City Christmas

We were so excited when Mom offered to take us back to Silver Dollar City last weekend for their Christmas Festival. We got very fortunate with the weather, and had a really fun time. I knew it would probably be too cold for Violet, so she got some daddy & me time while I took the boys.

Mom was able to borrow this 15-passenger van from a friend, which the boys called the "White School Bus" (this was extra funny since the family we borrowed it from are the Whites). It was so fun being able to all ride together down there.

The kids wanted to stop at Osceola Cheese, which I have a feeling will become part of the 'tradition' when we go to Silver Dollar City.

Oliver is cheesing it by the cheese.

And the toughest decision of the morning is which kind of sucker to get. . .

We made it to Silver Dollar City just as the park was opening and were greeted by this enormous wreath.

Here's our whole crew. (The daddies stayed at home for this trip.)

The first show we went to was Dicken's Christmas Carol, and what a fabulous show it was! I thought the acting and special effects were spectacular.

Next, we went to Calvin's favorite show, Frosty. The kids all got to go onstage and watch Frosty come to life.

The final show we watched was the Living Nativity. It was a very moving portrayal of our Savior's birth.
We also found time for a little shopping while there. We did not buy this $11,999 snowman, but Calvin did get to pick out a very special train ornament for our tree at home.
One of the coolest things I have ever seen was this 5-story Christmas tree lit up by thousands of lights that dance to some of my favorite Christmas songs.
Once we were done watching the beautiful dancing lights, we found our places for the parade.

While waiting for the parade to start, we enjoyed looking at some of the trees all lit up.
Then it was time for the parade to start! The floats, just like the rest of Silver Dollar City, were covered in lights. Here were a few of our favorites. . .

After the parade concluded, we headed over to the train. The boys loved riding the train last time we were here, and this time was SO much fun in the dark!

Guess who's getting a little sleepy.

Here were some of the displays we saw while on the train ride.

The train stopped so we could listen to "Grandpa" tell the true Christmas story as the characters lit up.

In addition to the over 4 million beautiful lights, we got to hear the Christmas story 3 times while at the park. I felt like it was better than any Christmas Eve service I'd been to. They definitely know the reason for the season and it served as a great reminder to us as well.

I told Russ this is going to become an annual tradition for our family. It was just so special!