Christmas Day 2008

Brynn and Abby woke up bright and early, but thankfully not too bright or too early. Aaron slept in until we woke him at 10:30, we opted to let him sleep as long as possible since it would be a BIG next couple of days for all of us. It was cute to see the girls peruse through everyone's gifts from Santa.

Abby was very pleased with her gift from mom and dad...a new Care-Bear blankie. Joseph and I stayed up until 3 a.m. tying the quilt, but it would have been 5 a.m. if Sara and Grandma hadn't helped us get started. Thanks ladies! Grandma Rowene did the binding while we packed our bags to go home. This gift was truly a whole family effort and her favorite gift of Christmas.

I think Brynn was looking to see if any of the piles had what she REALLY wanted in them. After seeing what Santa left, she said, "Are there any more presents." You see, what she REALLY wanted was something she had had her eye on for the last few weeks. When I saw it I said, "We are absolutely not buying that!" Joseph told me, 'We absolutely are buying it!" Brynn asked Santa for it, but Joseph told Santa that he wanted to take the credit for getting her what she really wanted. Santa agreed to let her dad and mom take the credit and we took care of the thing Brynn wanted the most this Christmas....we put the present in a Target bag before we wrapped it to throw her off, because she knew it didn't come from Target. I must admit, it was delightsome to see her face and her excitement when she discovered what was inside.....

A soft and furry brown coat that she saw at Marshall's and fell in love with! I must confess that, while I thought the coat was hideous at first, it has grown on me. J oseph and my mom convinced me that I shouldn't crimp her style.

I don't think she removed the coat for the rest of the weekend, except to bathe, and of course at the reception when we told her she had to give her new dress equal showing time.

When Aaron did finally wake up, he was all smiles, even with dried, cracked lips. (That darn dry Utah climate). We could have given him a single book for Christmas and he would have been thrilled.

He proudly donned this back pack from Joe's mom all morning. It was mini and super cute! I spent the morning trying to undo all of the crazy packaging jobs they do now days.

Joseph is always a wonderful gift-giver. This year he did some nice "things" for me and I was/am very grateful for his thoughtfulness, but the best gift of all came as a complete surprise. He always writes a letter for gift-giving holidays. This year he did another sweet letter and wrapped it up nicely for me to open. I read the letter that expressed his love and appreciation...specifically his appreciation for my conservative style and my determination to pay off debt.

I read the letter and told him thanks, but I didn't realize there was more. He then told me to look under the tissue paper. As I lifted it my jaw dropped and I started to cry as I hurried to him for a hug. We hugged and cried together. We set a goal last year to have the private loan debt from law school paid off in the first half of 2009. We made some significant progress last year, but we weren't quite sure if we would really be able to do it. Well under the tissue paper was a check to pay off significantly more of that debt. We 're going to meet that goal after all! It has been so unifying to work hard and sacrifice together to reach it. He knows me so well, a gift of paying off our private loans is one of the best gifts he could give. Our hearts were/are full of gratitude to our Heavenly Father for rewarding our efforts.

Of course, my brother Wade lightened up the moment by saying, "Gee Clark, you shouldn't have..."

It was a great and busy day filled with lots of family, and the evening kicked off the wedding celebrations of the weekend!

Christmas Eve 2008

It was fun to rejoin our families this year for our traditional Christmas Eve festivities. While we enjoyed doing them on our own last year, it was great to have an excuse to be there this year. We've decided that traveling at Christmas time with 4 children is tricky. Last year my parents came into town to stay with us over Christmas. It was great. Truth be told, I am a lot happier and a lot less grumpy at my own house than I am while I stay at someone else's. I think it's having control over my circumstances type of thing....not that I'm proud of it, it's just the truth.

Anyhoo, we started out in the morning at Joseph's Mom's house with our LIVE nativity and soup and snacks bar. We stayed inside this year because of all the newborn babies. I was thankful for that, but we did miss being with the animals and having someone ride by on a horse as the Roman Soldier.

Joseph's mom has a never-ending bin of nativity clothes for everyone to wear...and every year she pleads with the children (and adults) to do a reverent sort of re-enactment. It's as reverent as you can expect with 30+ grandchildren and 20+ adults present. (I loved President Eyring's Christmas devotional message this year and hearing about his family's attempt to have the perfectly reverent nativity.)

Grandma Shawny with her festive apron and our festive baby Isaac!

After the nativity and our lunch the dad's took the little kids outside to play in the snow and to be towed by the four-wheeler in a long chain of sleds across the property. Grandma Shawny lives on 3 1/2 acres, so there was plenty of space and snow to have lots of fun!

The kids loved it...and they didn't even mind that they didn't have the warmest of winter clothes. Joseph wanted to go and buy some snow clothes for the trip, but I didn't want to spend the money for a week's worth of snow play. They had to wear thick jackets and snow pants from 2 seasons ago when we did live where it snowed.

Aaron was wiped out from the events of the day.

That evening we headed back to my parent's home where my mom had prepared our Christmas dinner. I told her before we came that she should nix the traditions for this year. Things were so stressful at their house the few days leading up to Christmas (because of the wedding). It was crazy and out of control. She insisted that she should do it all....I don't know whether to call her crazy or amazing. She ran around all day doing preparations for the wedding, which was the day after Christmas...and then came home to make a turkey dinner, with potatoes, veggies, homemade rolls, etc., and then woke up the next morning and made our traditional homemade Quiche and cinnamon roll breakfast. I have to hand it to her though, she did use pre-made crusts to simplify things a tad bit. The stress in the house was driving us all crazy, but by the time Christmas Eve and morning came, things were much better. Christmas night and the day of the wedding the craziness struck again, but it wasn't as bad as before.

This has nothing to do with Christmas, but after we acted out the nativity at my parent's house, everyone was in the spirit of dressing up. My mom hated seeing Aaron in the girl's princess dress-ups, so she insisted they go find the police officer and fire fighter costumes. Aaron was in heaven and very proud of his get-up!

The kids opened up their first present of Christmas and were thrilled to get matching pajamas for themselves and their dolls (and cars :)).

Then off to bed, so Santa Claus could make his visit!