Christmas 2009

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. The celebrating went on for days and days.On Christmas Eve we had our traditional dinner of Hawaiian Haystacks and were joined by friends, to make the evening complete.

Erin and her girls came over and made the party super fun.

Kevin and Corinne with their daughter Erin and granddaughters
Ava and Stella.

Corinne's parents, Dee and Carol Sharp, also joined us.

Here the guys are posing with Stella.

Della and Corinne both love blue and white and ended up buying each other blue and white gifts.

Kevin is Ken's best friend. Kevin likes the book Ken gave him.

On Christmas Day David and Kami came over and brought us a really cool gift. It was the Family Proclamation with photos of our family all around the border.

Grant had to work on Christmas day, so we didn't start our festivities until he got home in the early afternoon.

We opened our gifts...

...ate dinner and then played games.

Cubby loved to bat at the tree ornaments.

On Sunday, the 27th, Blaine and Michelle arrived, and we started celebrating all over again.

We ate multiple dinners.

We played with the kids.

Even one day Corinne came over and played with the kids.

On Grant's day off we had our 2nd Christmas.

In the middle of our celbration we had a super fun surprize when Justin and Jenny came by for a visit.

More food.

More presents.

And exhaustion.

Despite being tired, it was a wonderful holiday, with family and friends. We are so blessed.

My next post with be about Kimberley's birthday, but I must run, for now.

A Very Merry Retro Christmas

Do you recognize these people?In my fantasy deluded mind, we still look like this.
The year was 1987.

Ah...the good ol' days.

Joy to the world...

...the Lord is come, let earth receive her King!!We truly have great reason to rejoice!

When Jesus was born, the angels sang.

What did they know that caused them to want to sing?

They knew that because of Christ the world would not be lost.

I can't imagine what life would be like without the knowledge of the resurrection. If I thought that death was the end, I really think that life would hardly be worth living. Because of Christ, all of us will be resurrected one day, and that alone would be reason enough to sing and shout for joy. But, because of His suffering in Gethsemane, we have been given the wonderful opportunity to repent and to be forgiven of our sins.
Oh, how I love my Savior and I rejoice that He was born.
I wish you all a very joyous Christmas.
Let us all give thanks for our Lord and Savior and for all that he has done for us.

December Randomness

I really love Christmas. I love it for many reasons. One of my biggest reasons is all of the decorations. Everything is so pretty at Christmas time. I love driving down the street at night and seeing the lights on the houses. At the darkest time of the year we have lights to just cheer us up. I love that. I love seeing everyone's decorations in their houses. Last week we went to the Malones and we practiced taking pictures with our new camera.Here's Cubby in his permanent home for the month of December.
I love our tree. It is a hodge-podge of decorations that we have collected over the years and it just feels so homey.

Yesterday, Tiff brought the kids and we exchanged gifts before they leave for California for Christmas.

Charlie is growing so much and smiles quite easily. He is soooo yummy.

Ward Christmas Party and Memory Lane

Last night was our ward Christmas party. It began with a choir performance by our local high school choir. Watching those kids really took me down Memory Lane. I was reminded of my own time in school choirs but it mostly reminded me of Grant's and Michelle's school choir experiences, so I thought you might enjoy looking at a couple of their choir photos.Yes, that is Grant out front singing a solo. If I remember correctly, this was at a state wide choir festival, and Grant won best solo performance. If you are friends with Grant you may now tease him and ask him why you never knew he could sing.


I couldn't find a photo that worked for Michelle, so here is a page from her scrap book. She and Grant were both in show choir and in the concert choir.


After dinner at our ward Christmas party they had a nativity performed by the primary kids. Once again, I thought of the good old days.
Grant was cast as Joseph in our Albuquerque ward's nativity.

And, Michelle was an angel, because of her angelic voice.

It's always a wonderful thing to recreate the scene of our Savior's birth to help keep you on track during the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season.