Christmas Puzzle 2009

So...one of our traditions at Christmastime is to put a puzzle together. This year's puzzle was particularly challenging with 1,000 pieces. I liked it because it had the Grand Tetons, which reminded me of Home! :) We almost gave up a few times...the flowers were a beast! We usually finish a puzzle before Christmas Day, but this year we finished on Christmas Day (with a little added help!) It was worth it though!

Christmas Day

We had a nice Christmas Day! Here are a few highlights:

We began by giving our gifts to Christ. We write down some spiritual goals we want to work on and then place them in a special stocking for Baby Jesus...then we open our gifts.

I received a Cricut Expression (yeah me!)
Allen received spurs (he has been dreaming about these forever!) as well as the Joseph Smith Papers Volume 2 (which he was wishing for too)



Natalie received her letterman jacket (although she's been wanting one since last year and was excited to finally have it, I think she hoped for a new car! haha!)



Aaron received a paintball gun (which he was very excited about and it would have been a total surprise but he admitted that he discovered the sites I used to research which one to buy)!


Allen is taking his game of Rock'em Sock'em Robots pretty serious...while Natalie looks thrilled :)



We then spent the day hanging out with family, eating some yummy food and the kids played new games on the Wii. It was a wonderful day!



Allen & I have had this train set for years. We decided we'd get it out when Aaron was old enough to play with it and we just sort of forgot about it...until this year! But, Allen proves you are never too old for a train! He had a great time with it! :)

Christmas Eve Part II

After our traditional Christmas Eve festivities Natalie and Aaron reverted back to their childhood and decided that they wanted to spend Christmas Eve under a man-made tent in Natalie's room. It cracked me up. I couldn't believe they wanted to sleep on the floor rather than their warm comfy beds...but they did and I took pictures because it was so hilarious. It brought back memories of when they were little kids waiting for Santa. I loved it! :)

Christmas Eve Part I

It is a tradition of ours every Christmas Eve to get together with family and have all the children act out the Christmas story while someone reads Luke 2. I'm not sure if it's as spiritual as it is comical, but we have a great time and hopefully the children remember these special moments. Last year the older cousins were in town so our play was a little more put together, but this year the kids were all younger than usual so our usually 10 minute play turned into 2 minutes. Our Mary (played by Dave & Becca's little girl Ashlynn) loved riding the camel (played by Aaron...perfect character for him I might add!) but the scriptures were a bit to lengthy for this group (good ol' Allen did his best, but had to quickly condense it to the toddler version) and by the time it was time to have baby Jesus (played by Ashlynn's sleeping 3 month old brother Isaiah) our little Mary didn't like her costume so she took it off and she was done. She stood around long enough for the visitors to hurry and show up (all together). The Angel (played by Kyle & Shauna's little girl Cami)was cute because she was little enough to be held in the air by her mom overlooking our cast members so that it appeared she was coming down from Heaven :) It was concluded with a jedi fighting shepherd and Joseph (played by Kyle & Shauna's boys: Gideon and Blake, respectively). The one wiseman (played by Natalie) just sort of sat there laughing. However, our Baby Jesus was perfect...which is probably how it really was! :) It was a very special evening!

Natalie's Disney World Trip

Natalie's high school basketball team went to Orlando, Florida to play in a basketball tournament right before winter break began. They got to go to an Orlando Magic game, spend time at Disney World, Epcot, Universal Studios and their team took 5th place in the tournament. She had fun, but my favorite part is when she told us that she really wished she would have been there with her family instead of her team! That made my day :) I wanted to share some pictures of her trip.

Sadie's

Natalie invited Samson Toalei to Sadie's. He is in our ward, but goes to a different high school. They had a great time! They took pictures, had a progressive dinner, rode a couple roller coasters downtown and ended with a shaving cream war. Back in my day we went to the dances, but nowadays they usually don't go to the dance, they just plan other fun stuff :)

Gingerbread House Time

Tonight we put a Gingerbread House together and decorated it. Aaron did most of the frosting and then we decorated it together. We had a great time!

Sneaky Missionaries

The Missionaries were over the other day and as they were waiting in our entry way they decided to decorate my Calendar Santa with "pass along cards." I didn't notice it until a couple days later... Thanks for the message Elders :)

The Invisible Man

I walked into Aaron's room and found this...

I thought maybe Aaron had melted while sitting in his chair. LOL! (Just Kidding) I love when he makes me laugh! :-)