Issue 31

Merry Christmas to All!

After 2 very simple and quiet Christmases overseas, we reveled this year in being surrounded by family. We spend Christmas Eve at my parents home and spent the night there with my sisters and their families. With Quinn home from his mission and us back from NZ, it was the perfect way to spend the holiday. I worried a little that it would be crazy chaos and hard to transfer Christmas for 7, but it all turned out beautifully. After a wonderful dinner we decorated stockings with the kids. After putting them to bed the adults laughed our way through the movie Elf and finished our Christmas preparations. What fun to have Santa come to Grandma's house for everyone! The kids trying to convince Grandpa it's time to open presents with some convincing foot and hand rubs.

Our traditional "waiting on the stairs while Dad (Grandpa) goes to see if Santa came" picture has sure grown over the years!

Santa always wraps his presents in red and green tissue at our house.

After opening our gifts at my parents we went to Steve's parents for Christmas dinner and celebrated Christmas #2. Yummy food, playing with cousins, and Kung Fu Panda were all on the menu. The men even went and found a Geocache nearby to break-in Grandpa's new GPS device.

Emily made these adorable Mrs. Claus aprons for all the women in the family!

Cousins exchanged gifts (each had drawn the name of one cousin and bought a special gift for them) and Mrs. Claus (Grandma) handed out her presents.

Merry Christmas!