December 24- Christmas with Grandpa Ray and Christmas Eve with Friends

Yeah, it's Christmas Eve, the night before we celebrate Jesus' birth! Even in the excitement and business this time of year can bring, we hope we are communicating with our girls how important it is that we are celebrating and rejoicing that our Savior came to live among us, Emmanuel (God with us)!
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Nadia is not crying as much on her tummy now because she finally worked her muscles to be able to push up and lift her head up high.

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Nora and Daddy playing with Nadia.

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Nadia's teething and putting everything in her mouth now.

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Daddy being silly with Nora. Nora thought it was quite funny.
Who's ornerier?

Today we got to talk with Grandpa Ray on the phone. Grandpa Ray doesn't have a computer or skype ability so we had to do it via phone. The girls still talked with him and they opened the gifts while he was still on the phone.
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Naomi opening her gift from Grandpa Ray.

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Nora opening her gift.

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Naomi got Alphabet Bingo. She's really been having fun learning so this will be a fun activity.

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Nora playing with Naomi's gift.

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Nora got number and alphabet puzzles.

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Naomi putting Nora's puzzle together.

After we got off the phone we went to the pool. Who goes swimming on Christmas Eve?! Ha, only in the tropics. The pool was actually a bit chilly today so we didn't stay long. We have had a jam-packed day, but it has been a great day. Tonight we celebrated Christmas with our friends. We sang Christmas carols together, read God's Word on Jesus' birth (the best part of Christmas), ate Mexican food (yummy!), opened gifts, had lots of laughs and to top it off had fireworks! It's a late night. So good night!
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Being silly and having fun

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It's getting close to Nora's bedtime but I doubt she'll go to sleep.

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Singing carols together.

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Naomi opening up a gift.

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Naomi with a sparkler. The girls didn't mind the sparklers that much, but neither one of them liked the big, load fireworks. We had to take them inside for that.

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Something must have been funny.

Thankfully Nora and Nadia slept on the way home. Naomi fell asleep shortly after we got home.