Christmas is always great; but this year was extra special because I got to take the Sacrament on Christmas day! It is nice to have Christmas on weekdays, naturally, as you have more freedom to play with all your new things, but I absolutely LOVED having it on the sabbath this year!
But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to Christmas Adam (as the Monsons like to call it). The Friday before Christmas we had a games day at our house with Josh’s family. Josh had a new game called Rocket League he wanted to try out and we played all the other games we could think of! (My personal favorite games include Carcassonne and Say Anything.) We also ate lots of delicious things including, but not limited to: pizza, chips, and cookies!
This is literally the only picture we have of this event.
Christmas Eve was spent with my family. We did our traditional breakfast (thank you to Crystal for all the deliciousness!) and a movie. We saw Moana again and the kids loved it even more the second time around! That evening we had our fancy dinner and nativity at my parents’ house! We have quite the production when you get all of us together!
This is also the only picture we have of the nativity. I think this is the angel telling the shepherds and sheep to go see the baby Jesus. I don’t remember who Tanner was cast as, but he looks rather stately holding that dog.
When we got home from the family festivities, we opened Christmas Eve gifts. The older kids got slippers. Portia got snuggles.
Then it was time for Santa to come! Josh and I somehow managed to get a picture of everything he brought right after he flew up our invisible chimney!
I probably should have turned on the light for this picture…
I genuinely had a hard time going to sleep on Christmas Eve, even though I was quite tired, because I was so excited for the next morning! It didn’t disappoint when it did finally arrive, though! The kids had so much fun opening gifts that Josh and I waited to give our gifts to each other until after they were done and off playing with their new things. I don’t know if we’ll do that every year, but it was fine this time.
This was the kids’ big gift this year! It is a teeter-totter airplane that 7 kids can potentially play on at once! Josh and I can even do the teeter-totter part together and it is super fun! The kids loved having it in the house this past week. But now it is out in the shed until we have some grass exposed on which to set it.
After Christmas morning at our house, we had Christmas morning take 2 at the Monsons’! This is the good part where we got to go to church! I seriously loved it! Much more than I expected I would. I thought it was going to be troublesome to go in the middle of all our festivities, but it wasn’t. And what was super cool (besides the Sacrament) was that their ward saved their choir and primary Christmas program for Christmas Day! We did ours the week before, as I’m sure many others did, but this ward had the whole shebang for us to enjoy on Christmas! They even sang my favorite Christmas song (I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day)! It all just added so much to the joy and spirit of the blessed day of Christmas!
After some more playing at the Monsons’, we headed up to the Muhlesteins’ to talk to my missionary brother, George, and have Christmas morning take 3 along with lots of visiting, eating, and playing. We were each so blessed and loved this Christmas, and we hope that others felt our love too!
Since Christmas, we have been mostly just kicking back and relaxing. Josh took most of this past week off to play, and on the days he did work, he got home early. We have been getting excited for some new projects that are in the works, but mostly we have just loved taking a break from everything.
We also had a fun time bidding farewell to 2016 last night! I say that rather than welcoming 2017, because we were all asleep at midnight. 🙂 Josh planned the festivities for New Years Eve. We all went to Discovery Gateway together, which was tons of fun! There wasn’t a single section of the museum that the kids didn’t love! We’ll probably have to go back sometime.
Carter at the construction site
Fay at the grocery store
Then we came home and had gourmet burgers (Josh knows what I like!) and pie with ice-cream! Plus, Josh made balloon animals and hats and we had glow-sticks galore! We had a dance party and karaoke! It is so fun to have a family to party with!
Yeah. We’re cool.
And now we have a brand new year with brand new possibilities! I am super excited for 2017 because of my new year’s theme! Instead of doing a list of resolutions (which I have done in years past and thoroughly enjoyed) I am trying out having a one word theme for the year. The theme I chose is delight. I want to delight more in my stage of life, in my children, in my husband, and especially in my Savior! I decided to turn the mantel (you were waiting for it, I’m sure) into a reminder!
My sister, Kathryn, made me that stunningly beautiful sign for Christmas! “Scatter Sunshine” is the motto I chose a while ago for my life, and I think my efforts to delight more this year correspond so well with it. It is easier and more effective to scatter sunshine to those around me if I, myself, delight more!
Happy New Year!
So fun! I’m glad all the Christmas festivities went well!