Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year! Once again I say that we have the best neighbors and friends ever! We celebrated New Years Eve by going to an awesome dinner at Woodman's first and then had the neighbors over to our house for some fun.

I decorated the house with lots of candles, twinkling lights, and balloons. Wade installed dimmers on most of the downstairs lights before the party so it made for very nice mood lighting.

Kristen and Todd brought over their xbox kinect and we played the sports games and even broke out the dance game.

Jeff and Karen did a dance off... very entertaining!

We did a white elephant gift exchange. It is very funny to see what types of gifts grown adults think are funny....

The pink flamingos were an extra gift and were re-gifted that night to poor Stephanie and Justin (who were in Cabo)

Here are Stephanie and Justin's new pets... they only lasted 4 days until they came home. I have a feeling Justin will share and make these a neighborhood pet and they will rotate around to the house of whoever happens to be out of town that week. The gift that keeps on giving....

Christmas Morning

We spent Christmas celebrating at our house first with all of the kids and then going over to my mom's to celebrate with my family. We had a very nice, and actually relaxing day.

Christmas morning before all of the kids were up.

The kids on Christmas morning, with the girls in their new PJ's (and matching doll PJ's) that Grandma Gayla got them for Christmas.

Opening the gifts - all of the kids got a pillow pet from Santa. Brennyn got an American Girl Doll, Emory and Alliya got a 6 in 1 FisherPrice game and Bronson got StarWars wii games and dueling light sabers (for the wii). All in all it was an awesome Christmas and fairly low key. The kids were great and even took turns opening their gifts!

We drove to my mom's house for Christmas dinner and gifts.

The Seven Days of Christmas

Grandma Gayla does the days of Christmas every year and this year she went above and beyond and did seven days. Each night we open a present as a family and have a fun activity and meaningful message about the meaning of Christmas. We had a puzzle for the first night, suckers to share with your friends for acts of kindness for the second night, homemade ornaments for the kids to make for the third, treasure bags to keep special things in for the fourth, a story book for the fifth, a magnetic nativity set for the sixth, and Christmas bingo for the seventh. Thank you Grandma Gayla for all of the thoughtful gifts and fun activities. It is something we look forward to every year!

Reading the story of the birth of Christ on Christmas Eve.