Christmas Eve at home

We would not be at home for Christmas day, and did not want to take all presents with us to the folks house, so we let the kids open presents Christmas Eve morning.

Little Joe loved to see what was inside the wrapping.

Max of course loved every gift he opened for about 3 seconds. Then it was on to the next to see what else was waiting for him. Crazy boy.

And here's our little Izzy. She had the best facial expressions while opening. She was so excited about everything she got!

Reece and I got each other a few random gifts. One of our favorites was the Magic bullet. Awesome!

After a fun morning of Opening presents early (and then packing for our trip to N.H.), we headed over to the Toiaivao's house for a brunch with friends.

All the girls

Ena and Iz

Kawai, and Joe

Max, Joe, and Ice

Luke, and Isabel

Kaleo, and Tua

Malea, and John

Reece, and Donny

Thank you Toiaivaos for filling our tummys with yummies, and for always being there.

Back to the house to load the car. After a 3 hours we finally reached New Harmony. We all got to sit down and visit...

(meeting Jonah, Sharley's new boy toy.)

After dinner my mom requested the nativity with all 5 grandchildren, Mavis was awesome at creating the costumes while I was awesome at being the A**.
Heres the kids:

Sweet Angel baby Maley

Mary, Joseph, and The Babe

Here's the whole crew (Lauric was a shepherd)

After pictures Joe just wanted to snuggle his Papa

This was our exciting Christmas Eve. Seems like we do the same thing each year (I guess that's why it's called tradition) but every year it gets better and better.

Ward Christmas breakfast

This past Saturday morning was our ward Christmas breakfast. Yum! We enjoyed a really delicious breakfast and got to visit with some good friends. Here's lil' Joe, with a messy face after eating his fair share of eggs and sausage, and of course ketchup.

After breakfast the primary children presented a reenactment of the nativity. So cute. Max was one of the shepherds and Isabel was a lamb.

We were so blessed to feel the spirit of Christmas through the sweet spirits of the children.


Also on Sat. morning the kids got to visit with Santa. Joe was a little skeptical until Santa whipped out a bag of candy. :)
Max: "can you bring me Halo 4?"
Santa: "have you been a good boy"
Max "yeah, so can you?"
Santa: "uh, here's your candy bud, be a good boy."
(Halo 4 is a game that does not exist, but Max swears that Santa will pull through. Just like the year Max asked for a lightning McQueen sword. Not just a sword, but a cars sword, also non-existent.)

Go, Santa, Go!!!

Nice Sweater

So the funniest thing...

We planned an ugly sweater party with a few of our friends in the neighborhood. The next week a friend from Basketball invited me to another ugly sweater party at her house. Same week, crazy. So Thursday we went to Jamie's, and Saturday we went to Kelly's. (by the way, this was a while ago.) Good times! The first pictures are from Jamie's house, and then down below some from Kelly's.

Here's a few of the guys.

and of course the girls

Here's a shot of the most awesome-ist sweaters of the night. Way to go Malinda on the matching ugly's. So creative is she, and her hubby is amazing for wearing the sleeveless wonder!












Alright so Saturday night, we decided to go out to the creamery for a nice dinner with out the children. It was such a good idea! (by the way thank you Sara for watching my kids all night)
Here's a shot of all the couples involved.

Kelly, and Kye

Joe, and Buffy

Bridgette, and Ben

Katie, and Randy

and of course me and Reece

So after dinner and treats at the creamery, (did I mention how yummy it was), we went to Walmart for a crazy scavanger hunt.

We started off with all the wifes in the carts, we were quickly aprehended by the store management, and they advised us to get out. Party poopers! Anyway we continued to scavange, and had a blast. Three cheers for Ben, and Bridgette the big winners.

After Walmart we headed to Kelly's for a few yummy treats, and some white elephant gifts.

Here's to great white elephants

Where my girls at?

Silly boys

Things got a little crazy, and that was our que, that it was time to go home. Thanks to our friends for inviting us to some crazy parties.

Say "cheese!"

Last Sunday I bribed my kids into taking a few hundred pictures. I had wanted to take pictures outside this fall for our Christmas card, but never got around to it. So we opted to our living room right in front of our fireplace. Good times!

Now this first picture is the one I wanted to use for the Christmas card but I couldn't get it to work with any of the layouts at Costco. So I'll just post it here on the blog so I (we) can stare at it when ever I want to.

This was also a fun picture

Here's a few of just Max and Izzy

Maximus was so sweet to pose for me

and then there's Princess Isabel who was more than happy to take up some camera time.

and last but not least, happy lil Joe lookin' like an elf.

What wonderful children I have. I just love to take their pictures!


While I'm posting this pre-Christmas shout out, let me just take a minute to share something.
I know that we celebrate Christmas to remember our Savior Jesus Christ. I am so blessed in my life with a wonderful husband, and three beautiful spirits sent from heaven that I can not imagine what life would be like with out them. I also have a wonderful extended family, and great friends to share my life with. I know that there are some in this world who have no family or friends to love them, support them, or give them gifts this season. Let us pray for them, let us seek for these individuals, and share with them the message of love from our savior, and help them to know of the gift that he has given all of us.

Merry Christmas!

Midway Gingerbread festival with the folks.

This is what we did last weekend. Keep in mind that all of these pictures are like 90-100% edible. Mmmmmmm.

Little kids house with people

Pirate ship

Noah's ark

Cute little figures

Abonable, and Frosty :)

Here's the behive state

Which temple?

So after we looked at all the cool gingerbread houses, and the kids made their gingerbread man, we went to one of the other exhibits. It was at the church down the street. They had set up hundreds of Creches (nativities) of all different faiths. We were not allowed to take pictures except for these two below. So cute.

Here's the whole fam. in the manger

and here's my three little angels

We had lot's of fun! Usually we go to this event with the Toiaivaos, and this year we tried to get together but ended up only getting to say hi to them in passing. It's so fun to have traditions, and this is by far one of my favorite things to do in December.