Christmas

We kicked off the Christmas weeks with a concert provided by the 2nd graders at Riverview. The triplets were so cute singing their songs. (I have all the songs memorized by the way. They have been singing them for the past month.)

Then we were privileged to watch the girls and the Hupp girls dance at their Christmas recital. They danced to songs from Tangled which we love here in our house. It was really fun.

For Christmas Eve we had the Souths over to join us in our fun! Our dinner was delicious with lots of yummy snack foods which combined together was just delicious. So good in fact we had the same foods for New Year's Eve! Anyway, after we ate, we acted out the Nativity. This is the kids favorite thing to do on Christmas Eve. We acted out the story 3 times with each person getting to be a different character each time. It was great and truly reminds us of the reason we celebrate Christmas. Jesus is the hope and light in our lives and He is the reason we have Christmas. After the Nativity we sat around the tree and sang Christmas carols. Then the kids got to open up a special gift. Disney jammys to remind us of our trip to Dland for Christmas. Dave is so sweet. He put on Mickey jammys just for me. :) Then we put out fudge and milk for Santa, carrots for his reindeer, and stockings for the kiddos. We had a family prayer and then off to bed. Aspen couldn't wait all day to go to bed. Unfortunately the kids only slept for about 3 hours and then were up for about 4! They finally fell back asleep when it was time to wake up! Silly kids.



(Yes - Owen is a wise man in a tutu. with a magic wand. Aspen is an angel. Brooke and Connor are also wisemen and sweet Alex is baby Jesus.)

We had to wake the kids up Christmas morning so we could open presents, eat breakfast, and get ready for Church at 11. They were so excited and could hardly wait a minute to get down the stairs to open presents. After all the gifts were opened, we had some yummy breakfast of sticky buns, sausages, and orange juice. Then we got ready for church and enjoyed a wonderful meeting of music and messages about our Savior. It really was wonderful to go to church on Christmas day. After church, the kids played with their toys while Dave and I got ready to go up to Centerville. At my parents house, we opened more presents, ate more yummy food, and talked to my little brother who is on his mission in El Salvador. It was so great to hear his voice. That was probably one of my favorite things of the day. Then we went to see the Grants and sleep over there.