Merry Christmas from Spain!! We hope you had a wonderful day today with family and friends! Here is a view of the Sitges church tonight as the kids and I went for a walk at the beach.
Here are two Santas and a little Tarheel wishing you lots of love and Merry Christmas from Sitges.
To back up a bit, I had to include this picture from Jackson's actual birthday on the 15th , I loved it. :)
Opening Christmas packages and cards has been a highlight for the kids this year, it really helped to spread out the holiday!
Luke showing off his new headband and other treasures from Auntie Nellie and Uncle Josh.
Caroline was tickled with her new Christmas socks.
Then on Friday December 19th we had our Christmas celebration here with Brian before he left on a trip. We had snowflake and snowman pancakes for breakfast, then Brian read the Christmas story from the Bible, and the kids opened a few gifts from us, the Harnish cousins, and Grandma and Grandpa Siegrist.
Tarheel could hardly stand it, and had to help open the presents.
Caroline spent some time drawing a pretty girl wearing a beautiful Christmas dress. :) She can now write her own name, which is quite a feat since it has 8 letters!
I couldn't remember if I included a picture of our nativity yet this year, so here it is. The kids had fun opening one small piece a day in each of their stockings until it was all assembled.
More gift-opening, Caroline was all smiles when she opened her flamenco dress.
By the end of the day Tarheel was covered with tape and wrapping paper, it was hilarious!
Jackson received a great airport book from Grandma. In the background Luke is creating things from different shapes on a magnet board - a great gift for him.
And Brian surprised me with this GORGEOUS painting of the Sitges church!! I love it. I was really hoping to be able to take something like this back to the US.
On to Christmas Eve! Our small group leaders Patricia & Li kindly invited us to have Christmas Eve dinner with them and their son Pedro visiting from San Diego, and Patricia's sister Isabella visiting from the DC area.
We had an amazing meal of different Brazilian dishes - it was delicious.
They bought a box of chocolate eggs for each of the kids, and of course they were thrilled. We had a nice conversation with Brian while we were there, he was in a rental car on his way to the Christmas Eve service at our church in Lancaster!
Santa Jackson showing you the toy from his first chocolate egg, which he ate at midnight right before we left their house. Merry Christmas!
We slept in this morning, and when we got up we remembered it was Tarheel's birthday! So she got to open her presents first. Ha ha. She's now 9 years old. She's actually lost 10 lbs since we got here, I guess because we have been running more. She's in pretty good shape for an old girl.
We then ate reindeer snacks for breakfast. :)
The kids saw this in a magazine and begged to have it Christmas morning, so Caroline helped me make them. :)
Jackson had fun eating his reindeer.
Next, Luke read the Christmas story out of his kids Bible, it was precious.
The kids then opened their gifts from our neighbor Aunt Shirley in Landisville. They loved when she used to read to them, and she spoiled them with LOTS of great books!
Caroline's turn. Sometime after breakfast she turned into a fairy. :)
Along with her great books she also received a butterfly umbrella!
She noticed that one of the butterflies matches her flamenco dress with its red and white polka dots.
Finally, Luke's turn. He was thrilled with his pile of books.
THEN, there was one more set of gifts. They were so big I didn't have enough paper to wrap them, so I hid them and made the kids go on a treasure hunt.
Luke found his! An aircraft carrier set from Grammy & Pop-pop Sharp.
They helped Jackson find his, a deluxe castle set.
And finally Caroline found her's too, a princess castle set.
Wow, three gifts that need to be assembled, and one parent. I was busy for the next little while.
Luke helped Jackson with his fortress, and this kept them busy for a loooooong time.
Later in the day we made it out to town for a walk on the beach. They always love climbing on the rocks. Today we started at the very end of the Sitges beaches where we hadn't climbed before.
More exploring.
Merry Christmas from Spain!!
We then stopped by the pirate ship playground, where we hadn't been in a while. Luke brought along some airplanes from Aunt Sandy that we had fun flying.
Jackson was happy to play with his diggers again.
The three King kids took over sailing the ship.
As the sun started setting the sky was just amazing, here is a picture of the church from the playground around dusk.
Looking the other direction, the sunset was gorgeous and you could see all the people out for a walk by the sea after their Christmas dinner.
The sand sculptors were out with a nice nativity scene, much better than their recent Simpson's carvings. :)
The palm trees along the paseo are decorated with pretty blue lights, it's actually a bit shocking when you first see them!
One last shot of the kids and the sky - time to go home.And a video below of the kids saying Merry Christmas!
