December

        This Christmas season was one of the best!  I'm not quite sure why -maybe it was that we didn't stress out with any big ticket presents (tramp or Wii that sort of thing), maybe it was the chill in the air all December, maybe it was the amazing Nativity play done by our primary, or maybe it was all the botched doorbell ditching (We were miserable at it this year, got kinda caught a few times, had a few kids trip, had treats stepped on... but the elfing was fun and the mishaps made it all the funnier).

        We began the month with a trip to Mesa for Jake's soccer tournament, Chet's first birthday party and to cap off the day a trip to see the play The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.  It was our second year going and it didn't disappoint.  The Herdman's are my favorite naughty family.

(The Platt's and Ricedorff's with a few of the Herdman's)

       We made another trip down to Mesa for the Platt family Christmas party.  The soups were rich and delicious, the company was fun, the pajamas were adorable, the nativity play was awesome and the icing on the cake is that every single Platt was there and we got a family snapshot (which I don't have downloaded yet).

 (The Platt grandkids with Grandma and Grandpa)

 (The Platt grandkids doing the Nativity)

       We even made time to make a gingerbread house.  It wasn't the prettiest house you ever saw, but it didn't matter because the candy was gobbled up by the next day.  

The Sunday before Christmas was beautiful. The singing was gorgeous, as was my family, all dolled up in new beautiful dresses.  Also, as mentioned before, the primary did a Nativity.  Abby was Mary, Jake was an innkeeper (I think), Hannah was a shepherd and Annie was an angel.  So cute!

(What a good looking family!)

(The kiddos in their Sunday best)      

 Christmas was fun at our house.  Christmas Eve was spent at home with the Hawkins and Sister Tieman.  We had ham and potatoes, decorated cookies for Santa and then said good-bye to our guests.  Then Jeremy read the Christmas story from Luke 2, I read Twas the Night Before Christmas and then it was off to bed.  

Christmas morning was a blur.  I had wrapped the kids gifts and labeled them with reindeer names so they couldn't snoop.  It worked.   They were all surprised and all came away with a good haul.  We hung out for the day and then headed down to Mesa for the Goodman Christmas party.  The white elephant exchange was great and the Mexican food was heavenly.  And the company was a lot of fun.  The next day was spent playing Blokus, doing a puzzle where I won top honors as MVP (most valuable puzzler), and hanging with the Ricedorff's, Goodman's and Chesley's.  

 (All the kids in their new garb - except Claire who didn't get any new clothes)

(The crew in the mess of Christmas morning)

(Claire snooping under the tree.  For the longest time there was just one present wrapped and it happened to be for her and she had it opened in a matter of minutes.  It sat ripped under the tree for most of December.)