Merry Christmas (a little late!)

After that unexpected trip to South Texas, we went straight into Christmas mode as soon as Denisa flew back to Oklahoma. We had two great days in the Oklahoma panhandle, where 43 Engelmans gathered for the holiday. All of Mark's siblings, and all of our nephews and nieces and great nephews and great nieces were there except for one nephew's family. That included our son, Blake, and our new daughter-in-law. They picked up Denisa at the airport, and then made the four-hour trip from Oklahoma City. (Note: We've noticed that all of our pictures now seem to include our granddaughter--pictured here with her Uncle Blake and Aunt Claire.)

Our other daughter-in-law's work schedule didn't allow her to make the 7-hour drive from Kansas City. But we were proud that our oldest son, Luke, made the trip with our 7-month-old granddaughter. His relatives were pretty impressed with a father that was so brave to make that trip by himself!

Luke made the trip to introduce our little Carter to 40+ of her Engelman relatives. But the most important introduction was to Mark's Mother. This is her 18th great-grandchild, and she was very glad to meet Carter Lynn.

Denisa loves hanging out with the little girls, including these cute great nieces. Coloring a cardboard gingerbread play house is a fun holiday project for all the girls--Denisa included.

After our country festivities, we headed to the city for more Christmas. We are blessed to get to celebrate Christmas day with Carter's other set of grandparents. This is her first holiday that involves unwrapping presents, so it's a new skill for her to master. She got lots of practice!

Surprisingly, we didn't take many pictures on Christmas day. But of course Carter was in all of them. We were blessed that all of our children joined us by the evening, but we totally forgot to take a group picture.

We had a great Christmas and were blessed to see so many of our family members during this special holiday season. We prepared cards to mail to some people that we didn't get to see. It includes a family picture taken at Blake and Claire's wedding in June. Because Carter was too little to attend, she got her own picture in the Christmas card, taken last month.

Just like on the card, we send this greeting to all our blog friends--"Merry Christmas! Joy to the world, the Lord has come!"