Christmas and Christmas Eve 2011 and In Memory

The picture below is of Christmas morning. Having little children in the house makes Christmas fun. Eliza, Brianna, and Kaitlyn sure looked cute in their Christmas pajamas. They were so excited that Santa had come! We had fun opening presents then headed off to church where we got to have all of our daughters and their families join us. Then we came back and had Christmas dinner, opened more presents, visited and had desert.

Poor Kim opened a few presents in the morning then headed back to bed where he spent the entire day. He did not feel well at all. We missed him being with us for the day!

My oldest daughter's family.

April's family.

Alyse, me, and Annie.

Me with my daughters.

Christmas night my son's family came over. It was fun to see them!

Alyse and Jarom.

Andrew and I. Below me with cute Weston.

The whole family got to be together for lunch on Christmas Eve. We usually take a picture of all the kids on the stairs Christmas morning. But since Christmas Eve was when we could all be together we did it then.

Warren was so cute. You see the tie he is wearing. He put it on himself and told his parents he wanted to look nice since it was Christmas Eve.
We had our tradition pizza benders.

After we ate we played a fun game and then the cousins did their gift exchange.

Eliza gave Warren a big hug and thanked him for the Disney princess tent.

Below is me with all my grandkids. Thanks Uncle Joel for getting all the kids to look!

Dec. is always a special month as we celebrate Christ's birth and spend lots of time together as a family. This Dec. has been a tough month also. I mentioned in an earlier post about my sister Marilyn's grandson who died of SIDS. We also lost another member of our family two days before Christmas. My sister Carol's son Steve died after a valiant 16 month fight against brain cancer. Steve was one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. His parents, siblings, wife, and 11 year old twins miss him deeply! I pray for peace and comfort for my sisters and their families.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I really do think that Christmas time is the most wonderful time of the year! People seem to be just a little kinder and gentler at Christmas time. It is a busy time though. Wed. night we hosted a dinner party for a few of our neighbors then Friday night Kim and I with a couple of our neighbors had the privilege of attending the Christmas concert that the Choir does in the conference center. The special guests this year were Jane Seymore and Nathan Gunn. It was amazing and we really enjoyed it! We also went to dinner at the Lion House Pantry and checked out all the lights on Temple Square. It was a fun night.

Then Saturday morning we went to our Ward Christmas party. It was up the canyon in a beautiful lodge with picture windows and a roaring fire in the fireplace. The decorations were very festive. The atmosphere was very Christmasy (Is that a word?) Breakfast was delicious and Santa even came! We had 4 of our 5 children with us and 7 of our 8 grandchildren which made the morning even more fun.

The two cuties below are always so excited to see each other.

After breakfast the kids had fun decorating ginger bread men. Okay I had fun decorating one too.

Sunday all the family came to dinner and we had a special visitor from the North Pole come! I am always trying to get a good grandkids picture and all things considered I thing the one below with Santa isn't too bad. You can see every ones face right?

Below are the kids who were not afraid to sit on Santa's lap. Warren was just a little excited.

Below is my oldest daughters family.

My son's family.

April and her girls.

My babies with Santa.

We thought we'd get a picture with the girls but some little people kind of drifted into the picture with us.

Us with our not so little kiddos.

After our kids all left we attended our neighbors Christmas open house. This morning I went to Eliza's preschool Christmas program. Busy, busy, but fun,fun!