We had so much fun with Nate's sister and her family that flew in from the Tri-Cities area. You know they live in a small town when a trip to NM is a chance to eat out - that's just sad. I have to go out of town to find places to eat. We of course had to hit up a donut shop. What was funny is that we were listening to a comedian the night before about eating before you eat and vacations just being an excuse to eat. We were running some errands and had some time to kill before lunch so we decided that eating donuts was a good idea….you know….before we ate... We thought the dough buster must be a pretty cool guy by his name alone. We tried to meet him, but he was in the back somewhere.
Last year I made our Christmas jammies and messed up on mine (not leaving enough fabric to cover my tush) so we did something I've always thought would be fun - order an over priced family set from a catalog. Aren't we cute in camo? My nephews and niece were just as adorable in their new jammies -even though they didn't match ;) I had to include all the pics because Jared was acting silly and it is a rare moment for him to let me get a picture of him - let alone pose for one.
We were introduced to a tradition a few years ago by some dear friends. On Christmas eve they write out their goal for the year and leave them in a special stocking. These are our gifts to Jesus. The more years you do this, the funner it is because all of the years stay in the stocking. The first couple of years we participated were with our friends so those goals stay in their stocking. We started our own in 2011. This year we got to add my SIL's family to ours to keep as mementos forever. The funnest part is seeing what the kids want to set as goals for themselves. We start out the goal setting by reading the previous years goals and assess how we did on them before we make the new ones.
We were most excited to reinstate our Sunday dinner tradition with my SIL and her family there. Since they moved away we've stopped doing it. They were the glue that held Sunday dinners together. It is tradition to have breakfast for dinner on Sunday night. Not only did we have them over but the other 2 families that live here and the missionaries. Poor Elders got lost in the mix and chaos but we hoped it made them feel like they were at home.
We mostly just inflated our little niece's ego by making her the center of attention the entire trip. It was so fun to have Christmas with little ones. It was the best present ever!
We couldn't make our tradition of going to the movies Christmas morning work this year, so we went Christmas Eve instead. We were the only ones in the theater for awhile and Nate had done 3 surgeries that morning, so he laid himself out and took a little nap. The movie was one of the dumbest movies I've seen in awhile - I fell asleep it was so dumb. It was about dinosaurs. Oh well, you win some, you loose some.
There were lots of presents to open on Christmas morning. I didn't do as good of a job as keeping it small like I have in years past. Although the kids didn't get anything big. Jared got his own case of Fanta which was just about the highlight of his Christmas - with the exception of the Dr Who stuff Santa brought and his hoodie. Jordyn got the lego set of her dreams and Emma got practical stuff that she wanted and needed. Ethan was in love with his mega nerf gun and stuffed ostrich - although he keeps showing me this farm online that sells the eggs and then another site that has the incubators. He is trying his best to sell me on a real live one. He even shows me how to tame a wild ostrich when I tell him over and over that they are mean. It is really quite funny watching him act out what he will do to calm it down.
We had lots of cousin time. The crazy thing is that only half of the family is represented in these pictures. Nate has 7 siblings and 3 of them were at our house for the holidays plus my BIL's parents and sister that live here. We had 24 people here and this place was hopping. It was so hard to drive my SIL and her family to the airport the day after Christmas. Our fingers are crossed that one day soon they will find their way back to the land of Enchantment - or as my SIL lovingly refers to it - the land of entrapment :)
There are 2 pictures at the bottom that are of Nate and his brother and 2 sisters. I almost forgot that we made "the best party punch ever!" and it really kinda was. Don't you just love all those pins that say there are the 'best ever' well, this one didn't disappoint.
I finally managed to get sick Saturday night. Saturday morning I had a couple of random sneezes and then Nate and I worked the 3rd shift at the temple and my symptoms really flared up - of all places to get full blown sick - I guess there isn't a magic shield around the temple ;) Sunday Nate refused to let me go to church - which staying home sick is not something I know how to do. Today I feel like I got hit by a truck (probably because I couldn't breath and my head felt like it was going to explode, so I didn't sleep at all last night) and I'm praying I feel better by tomorrow when we are having all the family over again…fingers crossed.
I've said it before, but I'll say it again- family is where it's at!
PS, our elf did a few more things before we just plain forgot about him. He had a harder time moving around once we had house guests.
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