I love Christmas!
I love the spirit of the season!
I love everything about it!
And this year we had a wonderful Christmas!
My family decided to come to our house for Christmas this year!
It was so fun to have them here!
We did all the touristy things to do in our little town....
which isn't much.
But we had a great time anyways!
Since my sweet husband and I had to work most of the week
my family baked and hung out during the days.
Then we spent the evenings together eating delicious food and enjoying family time!
Here are some of the things we did while they were here:
Hiked through the windmills:
The kids
My family in true form
A little more normal
This picture deserves a little background.
My aunt and uncle do a 12 days of Christmas for my grandparents every year.
This year was a little different since my grandparents are on a mission in South Africa!
However, they still did the 12 days of Christmas for them but they involved the whole family this year.
Apparently, one of the days is a day of service so they asked everyone to attend the temple as a family.
It was a really neat experience!
We did baptisms and everyone got to participate.
The temple is such a special place!
My sweet husband and I didn't have to work Friday or Monday, we definitely enjoyed the long weekend!
It was so nice to spend the entire long weekend with our families!
Friday morning we had a little competition.
What started off as a push-up competition
ended as a: push-up, sit-up, and plank competition!
My mom won the push-ups with 45!
My brother won the as many sit-ups as you can in 30 seconds competition with 32!
My sister won the plank competition by holding it for almost 2 minutes!
She could have gone longer, but stopped when my mom (the last competitor) dropped out.
Then many of us went on a run/walk.
We spent the rest of the relaxing and getting ready for Christmas Eve!
My sweet husband's family came down for Christmas Eve and Christmas!
It was so fun to have both of our families there!
I really love that our families get along!
To keep the competitive spirit alive they had a yoga off.
I'm not sure who won, but we enjoyed watching!
Here is a picture of the whole gang!
After a little program:
reading of Christmas story and singing Christmas Carols,
sharing talents: dancing, belly-dancing, violin/piano duet, and singing,
we decorated our gingerbread house.
Then we played Guesstures.
Boys against Girls.
The girls won!
Then we all went to bed with visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads.
Then we woke up and did our Christmas morning traditions:
started a fire in our fireplace,
took a picture by the Christmas tree (in age order),
opened our stockings,
then opened our presents!
It was a wonderful Christmas!
We are so blessed!
We are grateful for all we received,
but we are most grateful for our families!
We're grateful that we got to spend that time with them
(we're grateful for those we didn't get to spend it with too and wish they could have been there)!
We also most most grateful for our Savior, Whose birth we celebrate at this special time of year!
That sounds like it was such a fun Christmas! That is so neat you could go to the temple with your whole family! And have them at you house. :)
ReplyDeleteWait, where do you guys live that you attend the LA temple too?? I totally thought you were still in UT for some reason...
ReplyDeleteSounds like a wonderful Christmas!!!