Christmastime

We are so grateful for our Savior and that we get to celebrate His birth every year!
It is my favorite time of the year and even though it gets crazy,
I enjoy setting out my nativities and thinking about the true meaning of Christmas.
I am so grateful for my Savior, I'm so grateful for His help through my trials,
I'm know that He understands and that He is aware of me and my little family.

I know that He is the way back to our Father in Heaven.

I feel like Christmas FLEW by!
I don't think it helped that we didn't really start celebrating

until halfway through December because of work trips and things.

I didn't get nearly as much done as I wanted to,

we usually take something to our neighbors and friends,

but that just didn't happen this year.

Next year.

After my sweet husband's family left Sunday night,

we had our Christmas with my side!

First, we opened our awesome Christmas pajamas!

 In our family we pick names and give to that person.

So we opened those.

Our brother-in-law had Sweet Girl,

She wasn't so sure about the box..

 But she sure loved the elephant inside it!

My sweet husband named him Dirk

One of my brothers had my sweet husband

 And my other brother had me (he's on a mission, so it actually didn't come until the next day).

So, I opened a gift from my parents.

My dad's good friend made this beautiful jewelry box!

 He also made my sweet husband's present!

 We gave my parents a book with pictures of them and our sweet girl.

I think it was a hit.

 The Monday before Christmas we spent the morning with my family since my Dad was leaving early the next morning to make it back to work.

 That night was Grammy's tree trimming party!

It was a lot of fun!

As we were driving away I realized I didn't take pictures.

Nuts!
We headed home after the party so we could go to my little sister's best friend's basketball game.

 Little One wakes up so happy!
She was making the cutest faces at her Daddy!

 We all received sports paraphernalia from my youngest brother for Christmas, from around his mission area.
So we dressed Sweet Girl in her's for the basketball game, I think we all wore our gifts as well.

Unfortunately, our team lost, but it was still fun to watch their game!
Afterwards, it took forever for my sister's friend to come out of the dressing room,
so my sister and brother started ninja fighting...lol!

 Finally, she came out and we took some pictures.
My youngest sister headed home with her friend,

my Mom and brother stayed for another day.

In the morning, we watched my sweet husband test fly his quadrotor.

Obviously, we took a few pictures while we were watching.

Here's my handsome man troubleshooting.

After my sister and brother-in-law got off work, they all headed to my parent's home.

We were going to head down to my sweet in-law's parent's home,

but due to some sickness, we decided to wait a little longer before going.

It was really nice to have Christmas Eve and Christmas morning together.

Actually, we went to a friend's house for Christmas Eve,

we invited them to come over, but they were already in the midst of preparing dinner and such, so they invited us over instead.

We had a good time, eating and chatting (and of course, I forgot to take pictures).

Christmas morning, we slept in, took some pictures by the tree,

opened a few presents,

I love this picture, she looks SO excited!

We made a delicious breakfast. 

After breakfast and we got ready and headed to my sweet in-law's house.

We had a delicious Christmas dinner and then we exchanged gifts with them.

Sweet girl got an awesome airplane from her sweet grandparents.

The cousins immediately came to help and make sure it worked!

Lol, they loved it! They rode it all over!

The next day we had family pictures and

helped my sweet husband's older brother's family load their moving truck

(obviously this isn't the family picture, but it is the outfit Sweet Girl wore for them and it's what she did while we loaded the truck).

That night we went to see some musical fountains and we rode on a cute little train.

The train

They gave us all conductor hats.

Saturday, we went to the beach.

I think Sweet Girl enjoyed her first time to the beach.

We headed home after dinner that night,
after a long time in the car, we let Sweet Girl wiggle and play on her playmat while we unloaded the car, before we put her to bed.

Sunday, was church and my final time playing the organ for the year.

Monday morning, we met up at Six Flags and had a great time with some of the family!

Sweet Girl really enjoyed it.. lol, she got to stand in line with us and then one of our sweet sister-in-laws would hold her while we all rode the ride (she (our sister-in-law, not the baby) gets motion sickness). For a few rides, Sweet Girl needed to eat or was sleeping so she and I would talk, it was really fun!

Sweet Girl enjoyed her time with Grandpa C too, he held her while we waited in line a few times!

All in all, we had a great Christmastime,

even if it went by SO fast!