Christmas once again

Another year has come and gone. It's crazy to see time fly by so quickly. This year we had the oldest two help Santa Claus. They still wanted surprises, so we tried to be careful! Someone else stuffed their stockings and they didn't watch me set up all the stuff from Santa. Sara helped carry everything into the TV room and said, "Mom, there's something PINK in my stocking." The next morning she found a deck of cards in there and didn't mind that the box was pink.

Santa brought a ping pong table. We're pretty excited about his; however, we still have to make room for it. I'm sure it will provide a ton of fun for us this year! Last minute Matt and I decided to buy an electric drum set! It was a gift for the whole family and everyone is quite excited about it. The kids have been very diligent in working on their music talents so we want to encourage it!

Christmas day is a true vacation day for me! I don't cook! So we planned for finger foods to keep us through the day. Matt made cinnamon rolls the night before and baked them first thing Christmas morning. I baked a ham and set it out to munch on through the day, as well as a couple trays of shrimp. Besides that there were yummy oranges and plenty of goodies! One of our favorite holiday treats is "Root Nog!" It's a combination of root beer and egg nog. Half and half is a pretty common mix, but I prefer mine one third egg nog and two thirds root beer. SO good...and SO fattning!

Day after Christmas we packed up and came to Idaho to spend time with the family here. It was fun having us all get together for our yearly Christmas party. We did our usual white elephant gift exchange game. This year we included the little boys and they did SO good to not get upset when something was stolen from them. I made sure to bring fun things that would be fun for any age. It worked! The laser car was the first gift frozen once Elijah stole it! I got the comic books, Calvin and Hobbes, that I brought! Jake and Trista took home the gifts they brought, which cracks me up! Josh got the star wars light saber, Matt stole the air hogs flying toy, Sara got a large amount of chocolate, and Zack got a cool top that is used to battle! Now we need to go get another top so there's someone to battle.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the Spirit of Christ through this Christmas season. I sang with the ward choir for our ward Christmas program and for the stake choirside. I also led the primary in a couple Christmas songs for the Christmas program. I taught the sr. primary girls to sing the descant for "Christmas Bells" and the rest of the primary sang the regular melody line. It sounded amazing! And we got tons of compliments. We also sang all three verses of "Away in a Manger."

2010 is only hours away. We look forward to a bright and beautiful future together as a family. What a beautiful family we have!