Christmas Festivities

Our Christmas festivities started a couple weeks ago when we decided to go to the Live Nativity in Alpine with Stephen and Emily. It was really cool to walk through the "Town of Bethlehem" and at the end see the nativity scene. Here are some pictures:

 These Camels were huge! It was cool to see all the live animals there!

 The Nativity Scene

A couple weeks later after Grant finished his finals and Lone Peak went on break we were able to head to Colorado for Christmas. The festivities included, but were not limited to: Ice-skating, swimming, playing Wally-ball, lots of cooking, eating tons of food, playing tons of games, the kiddos playing in the snow, getting together with our extended family for Christmas Eve, getting a visit from Santa, doing the Nativity Story, opening gifts, giving gifts, etc. It was glorious and it felt so good to be home! Here are some pictures:

Reed doing his fatherly/uncle duties :)

 Abby and Rachel (cute cousins!)

 Eric and Meg: SO HAPPY they surprised us all by coming up for Christmas!

 Reed and April: 2 days before April delivered Charlotte :)

 The Nativity Cast before putting on their wonderful performance

 Joseph (Adam), Mary (Alyssa), and Baby Jesus (Daniel)

 Haha! This picture kills me! This is the whole cast :)

 The kids were so excited when Santa came to visit!

 Reed and April and Family

 Brent, Carlissa, and Abby

 Mom and Dad

 Uncle Brad with Santa

 Stephen, Emily, and Daniel

 Eric, Meg and the Fam!

 Mom and Dad with Grandpa

 Reed with Grandpa

 Brent and Carlissa with Grandpa

 Eric, Meg, Family, and Grandpa

 Grant and I with Grandpa. Love that man!

 Traditional Christmas morning line-up. These next few pictures epitomize our family pretty well :)

 Abby as a cute sheep :)

 Meg and Rachel (She's as pretty as her mama!)

 Grant and me with Santa

 Alyssa loves her Uncle Grant! No wonder she smiled while he took her picture

 Stephen and Emily with Grandpa

Christmas Morning was a blast! I love seeing everyone open up their gifts and seeing the joy that goes into giving those gifts. 

All the siblings in our family got our parents a picture of the Salt Lake City temple with their names on it and their anniversary date. Props go to Meg for the design and to Carlissa for ordering it and finding a frame to match it. I'm so glad my parents loved it!

Grant and I got the game Dominion from Eric and Meg (We love that game! Thank you thank you!) and also a puzzle of Washington DC, and a calendar for this next year, and a few other generous gifts from our parents. We are so blessed to have such supportive families!

I gave Grant the movie "The Dark Knight Rises", the LOTR and Hobbit box set of books, another book about Abraham Lincoln, and a tool-box with some tools. 

Grant gave me some pearl earrings, black heels, the movie "Little Women", the game Guillotine, a book about giving natural childbirth in a hospital, and a coupon for a spa day! This boy knows me very well! I've already gotten through about half of the book about natural childbirth and it has gotten me even more excited about doing it. I'm grateful to have a supportive husband like him. 

Needless to say, this Christmas was wonderful and perfect! This is probably the last Christmas for a while that we will all be together, so it was a nice last hoorah for a while. I love my family and am so grateful we were all together :)