Christmas 2010

We had a great Christmas Day this year.  Head Honcho and I, as usual, were the first ones up and had to wake everyone else.  We started the morning with family prayer and a message about the Savior and His gift to us of the atonement.

Then came presents.  To stop peekers we started doing code names a few years ago.  This year we chose a few from the 12 days of Christmas.  There was French Hen, Turtle Dove, Calling Bird, Drummer Drumming, and Piper Piping.  They always have fun trying to guess their names and the big reveal on Christmas day when they find out who they are.  

Everyone was home and so thoughtful.  Brookie made Head Honcho and me an illustrated book at school, Conner made a shelf and a toolbox for us at scouts, Sam made me a sweatshirt from her sewing class, Kinsey and Kacey bought me a shirt and scarf and Terrence and I a signed book and Terrence some 4 wheeling goggles.  (I even got a great new lens from Terrence for my camera.  Yay!)  As they get older they get to be better and better gift givers as well as receivers.  

I've been collecting jeans for a few years with the goal that when I was released from Relief Society President I would make quilts out of them.  I got started in November and made 6 quilts all the way until the week of Christmas to finish.  It was my favorite thing to give and everyone seems to like and appreciate them.  

After gifts we had a big breakfast and Grandma Susan came over.  Everyone loved showing her their new gifts.  She was a great sport and even went a few rounds with Conner and his new boxing gloves!  We've had a few chipped teeth and tears from neighbors... the next purchase will be mouth guards.

There was a family gift of a ping pong table.  Conner has been wanting one for years!  After much convincing we talked Head Honcho into putting it in the basement instead of the garage.  Terrence and Conner spent a couple of hours that day building it.  It folds up to put away and late that night I saw a tearful Brooke at my bedroom door wanting to talk to me.  "We're really, really sorry.  We were getting the table out to play and it just kind of broke."  She wasn't tall enough to let her side down and dropped it, cracking one of the panels.  She and Conner offered to pay for the repairs.  Terrence and I spent the next morning at Home Depot buying mending plates and repairing the panel.  It's fine, but just has a surface crack along the panel.  

All in all it was a magical day and we have so much to be grateful for.

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve at Linda's for an amazing meal and fun company 

 Jen-Linda-Cari-Me

 Some neighbor kids that wandered in

 Rudolph made an appearance

 Goofin' around with cousins

Ahhh, that's better

 I loved Sierra's night shades! 

 It looks like they're doing a fine job.   See how sleepy she's getting?!

 A Christmas present (and it's all mine...)

 Hugs from Grandma

Brooke made Grandma an awesome sewing project for Christmas

Da brothas

 Cute couples that were there.  After about a year Kinsey's friend Lane has finally made the blog.

What a great season.  The best gift of all was being together.

Surprise!

Terrence's mom Linda turned 70 and Lisa (Terrence's sister) spearheaded a great surprise party for her.

The grandkids sang a song for her...

I think she was surprised...

Lisa MC'd...

Some of the people that were there...

We had a great dinner...

To give it the "Hogwarts dining effect", Tommy wore his Harry Potter glasses...

Cari had a beautiful poster made of everyone's favorite memories/sayings about Linda...

and we went on a carriage ride through the lights at Thanksgiving Point.

It was a HAPPY Birthday!

Guess Who

I gathered baby pictures of everyone in our family from dusty boxes in the basement.  Most of the pictures were taken at 6 months and I made a collage that's framed and in our hallway.  The kids had fun finding their pictures and guessing who was who.

Conner went through and guessed pretty well until he got to me.  He looked at it and said, "Someone from another family with a shag."  My mom wasn't into the whole take a picture at 6 months old thing- so I'm not bald like the rest of 'em because I'm around 18 months.  Thank goodness I changed them all to sepia too, because I was orange.  No kidding- I was allergic to everything so I lived off of carrot juice until I was like 5.  The carotene in the carrot juice made my skin orange.

Another clue- the boys don't have bows...

Another Broken Bone...

So Terrence wanted to make sure Kacey wasn't alone in the broken bone department and decided to join her.  Terrence, Kacey and I were jogging along the beach Thanksgiving Day and he had on new shoes and a different terrain than what he was used to.  It caused a stress fracture that just kept going and finally snapped a bone on the ball of his foot in two.  Who knew a little bone on the bottom of your foot could cause so much pain!?  

Conner has really stepped up to help and so have Sam and Brooke.  Conner heaved the Christmas tree upstairs (thank goodness for those 8 inches he grew this past year) and everyone joined in to haul all the Christmas stuff from the basement.  My kids are used to having house lights every year, but there was no way Terrence could get up there with his foot and the kids were pretty disappointed.  Terrence's brother Ty put lights on the house for us with Conner and his friend Tappin's help.  It wouldn't have happened without them.  I heard Brooke call a friend and tell her, "We have lights on our house now!"  A week behind what we're used to but all the symbols of Christmas surround us now and IT FEELS GREAT!  (I think it might be time for me to break something when it's time to take down.)  Terrence is such a help that when he's out of commission the impact is huge.  Well, Merry Christmas to everyone and have fun with all of your Christmas traditions.