Christmas

Do you see how happy this couple is?? That's because we had the BEST Christmas ever!!

We had all our children and their families with us this year....all 16 of us. We haven't all been together for Christmas for 8 years and it was SO fun!!!

I love reading everyone's blogs and how much they love their families. I feel the same way and feel so blessed that all of them came from out of state to spend Christmas with us.

So here's a few things we did before Christmas to get ready:

 Mow the lawn...I'll bet not many of you did this. The ironic thing was it snowed the next day.

The snow barely covered the ground, but its the first snow we've had in about 3 years, so we were excited to get some.

 Hang up garland with lights!

 Decorate the house.

Make cinnamon rolls for the neighbors...the two missing we had to sample:)

 A few families in the Ward went Christmas Caroling at the nursing home.

Had the Sisters and Wayne for dinner and got them gifts.

Got visited by St. Nicholas (Holly) and he(she) filled my shoes with goodies.
A German tradition.

The girls and their families arrived first and the cousins were very excited to see each other.

On Christmas Eve Kristy's family spent it with Wes' family and Jared and Maren didn't get here until late that night.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Our BEST gift for Christmas was the announcement from Jacob and Janette announcing a baby the first part of July!!
They actually told me on October 29th and made me keep it a secret from everyone, including Russ!!! That was REALLY hard, but I did it!! Everyone couldn't believe I did it, especially Russ.

Janette & Jacob

Wes & Kristy

Maren & Jared

I love Tytyn and Jazlyn's excitement about getting new scriptures.

Russ got me a new camera...so much for us not getting each other anything!!

We had a nice surprise Christmas afternoon when the Taylors showed up with a HUGE pan of fresh hot rolls that had just got out of the oven. Lindsey had already started the roll dough, so she made orange & cinnamon rolls. How sweet was that & on Christmas!! The Taylors do Russ' lab work.

Getting ready to do the nativity story.

I love this picture and I love these ladies!! We got matching PJ's for the guys too,
but as you can see, no picture.

The day after Christmas our good friends Holly and James came over and snapped a few pictures for us. We had to get a few silly ones too.

Braithwaite Family

Bingham Family

Jared & Maren

Getting married in 5 weeks!

Jacob & Janette

 After pictures, all of us headed up to the lake. We sat in the hot tub, ate, played games and it even started snowing while we were up there. There was ice in the lake and Russ told anyone who jumped in he would give them $10. Matsen and Kelston took him up on it.

Jacob & Janette gave this cool puzzle to Jazlyn for Christmas. Its all black and white & then after you make it, you color it. It was fun, because everyone worked on it a little bit and it turned out beautiful. It should be MUCH easier to make now.

Maren helping Jazlyn with a new set of nail polish.

 I played a couple games of hopscotch with some of the kids. I haven't played that forever and it was really fun. It was fun for them also, as they had never played.

Jump rope

Russ helped Matsen with his pinewood derby car!

Halter got really sick while he was here.  So glad he was feeling up to a picture!

Kristy's family got to stay for 2 weeks so we saw them off and on between Wes' family.
We made 6 trips to the airport, about 2 hours each way, but we'd do it again!

So what started out as 4 great kids, has turned into....

10 more wonderful family members and the BEST part is, is that we're still growing!!!

Having ALL my family home was the BEST Christmas present anyone could have given me!!

Thank you!! I love you