Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Bryan and I ate some delicious chocolate earthquake cake for breakfast on Christmas morning. Because of that and the fact that we left Jackson a little later than expected, we decided to make a "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" brownie this year instead of our traditional chocolate cake. Seth was excited as soon as we sat it on the table...

and he just loved the candles!

We sang the Happy Birthday song to our baby Jesus (from our nativity scene)
and then we enjoyed our brownie.

Then as we were eating we used our laptop at the table to make our donations to different charities. We are hoping to make this a tradition each year before opening our presents. I saw the idea of reading the book, The King's Christmas List from a blog called Impress Your Kids a few weeks ago and loved the idea of giving before receiving. I bought our copy of The King's Christmas List about a week and a half ago and we read it that night, but in future years we will probably read it while we are eating our cake or brownie or whatever else. This year I chose to donate a goat and Seth picked out a flock of chickens (by pointing and signing "yes") from Heifer International. Bryan decided he would like to give to Charity Water. Then we finished our Advent Study by reading the entire story of Jesus' birth. Afterward we gave Seth his gift.

It was a homemade car mat. My mom and I were rummaging through her closet during Thanksgiving and we discovered an old piece of fabric that she had used in her classrooms throughout the years. The fabric was more than 25 years old and I remember playing with it as a kid. It was in great condition, but it needed a backing fabric and the edges needed to be hemmed. So I brought it home, washed it, and added the backing to it. It was such a special moment when Seth figured out he could drive his little cars on it. I hope it provides him with lots of years of fun, too. This Christmas was filled with such special memories and we were truly able to focus on the birth of our Savior!!!