Christmas Day!

Waking up early on Christmas morning is a wonderful tradition. The kiddos did sleep longer than we thought they would this year. They must be getting older. (sad) But the Christmas morning excitement could still be seen on these bright eyed kids that we love so much!

We started off the day opening stockings with the Custis side and then headed over to the Bell household for more festivities of breakfast and of course presents!

David got a guitar. My parents gave Joshua some major work to get his car fixed and they gave Miles and I a trip with their Marriott travel points to travel anywhere in the world! Every year my parents will combine birthday, anniversary, and Christmas, and give us a week stay wherever we want to go worldwide. We are pretty excited and first off hoping to make it to visit my aunt Sharon in Arizona who is not doing well and on the way back perhaps see the Grand Canyon. Next year perhaps, Hawaii and visit my brother David’s place there. That would be amazing! My mom got the sweetest gift of all. My Dad. We all have had him 3 years longer than doctors said he would live. So praise the Lord for that! Christmas morning my dad gave my mom a beautiful card with a poem that made us all cry. He then got down on one knee and presented my mom with a beautiful diamond ring that would take your breath away. Their wedding/engagement set had some problems with the prongs and my dad was going to “replace them” for her ( and he did) but with another band/setting. The diamond is the same that he proposed with but its setting is stunning with something like 26 other diamonds around in and inside it and all over it. It was beautiful. Even the boys thought that was cool even though they would wince and cry out in pain every time mom and dad kissed. Cracked me up. This day would be a day of multiple trips. Good thing our parents live about 10 minutes apart. The trips between Clackamas and Gresham is not too bad. We left for more presents with the Custis family and all of Krista’s family there. The cousins were so excited to see each other. Cousin Josh drove in “on the roof” (through the sunroof) and made quite the entrance that left the cousins giggling for a long time after. It was so funny.

Jenna was so thrilled with the ornament she made for Uncle Miles.

These pictures are so fun to look at as I know they are their Christmas memories and mark another year’s end.

Cousins! Then it was dinner time at the Bells house and then back to Custis houshold for another dinner. YUM. I suppose we are lucky we get 2 dinner tables filled with food and family. Who could ask for anything more wonderful than that? Helping to read the Chrimstas story with Grandad.

We had a wonderful Christmas filled with lots of family and friends and remembering our Savior’s birth.—For He is the real reason to celebrate the season. We have so much to be thankful for.

This is the card I made this year.

Merry Christmas everyone, and I hope that your New Year is blessed!!!!!!
May it be filled with HIS love, joy and peace throughout this coming year. With love,
Miles and Jenny Custis

Friends and Family on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Time is Here.

A time for travelling to Portland to visit family and friends for the holidays.
Christmas Eve we spent the entire day with my side of the family. Both David and Joshua were HOME for the first Christmas in years and years. It was wonderful having us all home together. We were only sad that Holdyn could not spend his first Christmas with us. He is still in foster care back in Bellingham and the course will hopefully decide soon to be released into Joshua’s care full time. I am sure it was still pretty great for Mom and Dad to have us there but they of course so hoped that Holdyn with us as well. David had some biological family (we had never known about) come down and visit with us a while to learn about David. That visit took up most of the morning and in the evening Dad took all of us bowling. That was pretty fun. I think we all played really well. I did not quite woop the socks off my little brothers like I used to but if I remember right I was in second place. My dad of course was number one. He is the ol pro, so naturally I will take second place any day of the week. My goal is always to beat Josh. I can usually beat David and most of the time even Miles, but Josh is really gifted and it is really exciting when I can take him. -And I did the first game. Bowling has been a Bell family pastime. We all did it because Dad was really good at it (He went to Nationals and even made it into Sports Illustrated) way back in the day. Anyways we had a nice time together.
Later on in the evening Krista showed up. It actually has become quite the tradition. Our family used to have Arnichs and the Tse family over on Christmas Eve to watch movies and play games together. Oh such sweet memories we have together as families. It has been a while since we saw Krista. She looked as beautiful as ever! It was great to visit with her and meet her new boyfriend. Soon after she left it was time to finish up a movie with dad and then off to the Custis house to sleep for the evening for tomorrow morning is Christmas! Our nieces and nephew would be heading to bed all excited for the morning to come! Oh we could not wait to open stockings the next morning!

Christmas Parties

Both Miles' and my work have big Christmas Dinners. It is fun once in a while to get all dressed up and hit the town, right? I had my friend Brandi help do my hair and make me all pretty. Thank you Brandi! I thought pictures by the tree made sense so you could see the tree all decorated too!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Tree Hunting!

Christmas 2009 snuck up on me this year. From those I have talked to it snuck up on all of us. December was not especially cold and we were used to snow. Not this year. It just did not even feel right. And on the first weekend it was time to cut down our tree. Mom and Dad (Custis) were up visiting for the weekend so they were able to join us. We joined Andrea, Jason and the kiddos, Mom and Dad all for breakfast out at Dutch Mothers in downtown Lynden. It was so yummy and such a beautiful sunny day to get a tree. This year we brought home NOBLES! Such a treat. Andrea and Miles grew up with Nobles being the ONLY tree that makes a Christmas tree a TRUE Christmas tree. They were beautiful this year. We are very particular about finding the perfect tree that fits our home and family. Because it was a noble we had to find one that was very royal. We looked and looked and we found the KING! We cut the KING down and brought him home with us. Such a lovely tree!! And it was very nice having Mom and Dad around.

October -Time for Pumpkins!

Ok. So I have a raised box in the backyard that I have put old pumpkins in to rot each year and i noticed this summer (for the first year -ever) BLOSSOMS. They finally took root and sprouted this year beautiful yellow flowers. I was beside myself. I started watering that lil box every day hoping to get lots of big pumpkins! Well, only one grew. I got ONE. I have to say it was the cutest little pumpkin you ever did see. It was about the size of a baseball. Perhaps even slightly smaller.

SO CUTE!

I harvested it in October and let it sit on my kitchen counter. It seemed so funny that out of the entire raised box of millions of blossoms and vines that I carefully tended to all summer long - only this little pumpkin grew. But it was a keeper.

Miles and I went to the local market to get bigger pumpkins to carve as we could bear to cut into the one we grew.