Christmas so far...

There are 3 days left until Christmas. We have had both of our family Christmas parties, and still have 3 or more to go. It has been a busy week!

We started off our holiday festivities by going to the Larry H. Miller Christmas Sing-a-long at the ESA. It was free and it was a great time. At least I had a good time. Daniel was saying he wanted to go home by the second or third song. But he would forget that when the Jazz bear would come out and throw things or Big Budah the DJ would be funny. We were also glad that our friends the Rolfson's could join us. It was also neat that some of the soilders in the middle east were able to sing a long with us by internet connection. Every few minutes or so we would get to see the soilders on the screens at the arena.

ESA and everyone singing along.

Daniel and Logan

Mommy and Tyler enjoying his free hot dog.

On Saturday night we went up north to have my family party at my sister Amanda's house. An hour trip doubled to two when we were forced off I-15 20 miles from her house because the freeway was closed for 15 miles, due to a 30 car pile up. 20 on one side and 10 on the other. After taking the detour to the US-89 along with everyone else it was another hour before we finally made it, over an hour late. Thanks family for waiting for us! By time we got there we were all starving and tired of sitting. (Especially me! My tail bone had enough of that!) We had a wonderful dinner and enjoyed spending time with each other. When it was time to go, we were extremely glad that the freeway was re-opened.

Tyler


Daniel

Rachel

Ethan

The boys playing with the new Legos.

Bryant

Then last night we had another Christmas party with Nathan's family. Dinner was great! This year the family did a sub-for-santa for a family in need instead of exchanging gifts. So, there wasn't much exchanging except for the kids. (We felt it was still important for the kids to get gifts this year. And I don't think Grandma and Grandpa would have had it any other way.) Daniel, Tyler and Brayden got big robot dinosaurs that roar and move their tales and mouths. And then some animal crackers and Cars cars from Santa (and we aren't quite sure who that Santa is, they bring something every year, and no one recognizes the handwriting). We did have one "Christmas crisis" when Tyler fell and hit his head on a chair. It split his head open and he was bleeding quite a bit. When the bleeding finally stopped he wouldn't be calmed until he got to hold his baby cousin Carson. (He will be such a good big brother.) We convinced him to take a bath so that we could get the blood out of his hair and see how bad the cut was. To our relief it was only about a 1/2 inch long. Those head wounds are just gushers!

Poor Ty!

Grandpa and Carson

Nathan and I

My family

Grandpa and Ty
Tyler holding baby Carson

Aunt Buffy and Carson

Christmas so far has been great. We can't wait until Christmas day actually comes. We hope to see smiles on the boys faces and not looks of disappointment.