Christmas

This year, Christmas was much more eventful for us than in years past. My sister and her family came up from St George, as well as my parents, to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with us. Unfortunately, Madi came down with yet another ear infection on Christmas Eve, so I spent the morning taking her to the Dr. and then getting medicine for her. Everyone arrived here at our place in the early afternoon. My niece and nephew were very anxious to go play in the snow, so they spent a few hours out on the sledding hill. After 89 inches of snow earlier in the week, there was definitely some fun to be had out there! When they finished, we decorated cookies to leave out for Santa. Then we had our traditional Nativity, complete with costumes (see photo below... sorry, I'm terrible at putting them in order on here). We then watched Joy to the World, then got the kiddos off to bed so we could spend some time getting those "last minute preparations" all ready for the next morning...

Jim likes to follow the tradition of keeping the Christmas Tree hidden behind a sheet the morning of Christmas. The kids slept in until about 8am, which was fine with me... I'd had a very sleepless night with Madi the night before. She was so sleepy that she slept until noon on Christmas Day! Here are Jim, Aspen, and Tysen with their stockings.

The wonderfully sugary cookies we left out for Santa. We also left out a glass of milk and some carrots for the reindeer.

Aspen was SOO excited to get her Littlest Pet Shop. This is what she had asked Santa for, and sure enough, he delivered, since she had been such a good girl.

Ok, this one is out of order... here is my Dad, catching a few zzz's with Tysen, while we were preparing our Christmas Day dinner (Turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy, stuffing, yams, cranberries, and of course, pie! There was pumpkin, banana cream, vanilla pudding, and Dad's Famous Tart Apple Pie!

Here is Madi with her gift from Santa, after she finally got up. At least she was finally feeling better! I can't wait to have her surgery done on January 6th. She will have her tonsils & adenoids out, and tubes put in her ears. This should drastically reduce the number of ear infections, and increase her ability to hear.

Ok, here we are, after our traditional Big Breakfast on Christmas morning. We like to torture our kids by making them wait to open anything until after our breakfast feast! My sister & her family were VERY good sports to go along with all of our crazy traditions.

And here we are, eating our Big Breakfast, consisting of scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, pancakes, cantaloupe, and orange juice. Unfortunately, we skipped the sausage this year- we didn't quite make it to the right store, what with all the snow & sick babies.

Back-tracking again... here we are, doing our Nativity enactment. We had just the right amount of people (that's Jana, one of our students from downstairs, there in the right corner. She was all by herself for Christmas down there, so we had her come up Christmas Eve and again on Christmas day).

And here was one of the highlights for me: My sister and I both received the DDR game for the WII from Santa! It was un-planned that we would both ask Santa for the same thing, but it provided hours of entertainment for us later that day!

So, although it was a little crowded in our little 2-bedroom apartment with 12 people (fortunately they were able to sleep over in the Lodge so everyone was able to enjoy a nice soft bed), it was so much fun to have everyone here for Christmas. What better way to spend that special day, remembering the birth of our Savior, than to spend it with those you love!