Christmas

We had so much fun on Christmas this year. We spent Christmas Eve and half of Christmas day with my family this year, since Thanksgiving was spent with Mike's family. We had Prime Rib for our Christmas dinner (mmmmmmm...) and my mom put on a slide show presentation of the book "A Dress for Ellen" and "The Night Before Christmas" before we sat and opened gifts. She wanted to try something new this year, and it turned out to be a big hit, the kids LOVED it! I've never seen so many little kids being so quiet and good for SO long!! Everyone had so much fun opening their gifts, especially the little kids. I could hear each one of them saying, after they'd opened all their gifts, that these gifts were EXACTLY what they wanted. It's great that they're all so easy to please! My brothers and sisters have done an excellent job of not spoiling their kids.
This year we did a gift exchange in place of playing the White Elephant game like we usually do. I think it's because some of us go overboard in our White Elephant game purchases while others don't, and then we spend the whole night fighting over the best gift...but hey, that's what makes the game fun!!! :) Tim and Ally had Mike and I, and vice versa. They bought us a ton of SUPER CUTE baby stuff, which made us that much more excited and anxious to have our sweet little baby come around soon. (only two more months!)
After a long evening of opening gifts, playing games and sitting around talking, Mike and I went back to our house to open our own gifts. Mike, of course, bought me TONS of awesome, thoughtful gifts, and I was once again reminded how totally lucky I am. He even picked out some baby clothes ALL on his own, and they were SOOO cute! I didn't know my hubby had any baby fashion sense! :) The gift he saved for me for last made me want to cry...it was a picture I've wanted for years and had told him about earlier in the year. He had made a point to remember that I wanted it and searched until he could find it, then went through the work of purchasing the perfect frame for it and framing it himself, and it looks absolutely gorgeous! The picture is titled "Lost and Found", and I think it's by Greg Olson, though I'm not positive. If you go to DeseretBook.com and type in "lost and found", it will bring up the picture. It's an awesome picture, I love it. What a wonderful husband I have! Each gift was SO awesome and much needed, and it went to show me that he's truly the most thoughtful person I've ever known!
Christmas morning we woke up, opened our stockings and watched a movie while playing with Legos (one of my gifts to Mike) and eating the junk food from our stockings. :) We had planned to spend the whole day just the two of us together, and it was a great idea....until we got bored. It's not that we don't like being around just each other, but rather, that sitting in the house all day long with not much to do can get old really fast. So, we got ready and headed over to my parents' house to see what was up over there. We were planning on just going for a drive, getting out of the house and enjoying each other's company, but we ended up staying over at my parents' for the rest of the day, hanging out with all my brothers and sisters. By the end of the night (after we'd been there literally ALL DAY) I was exhausted from being around everyone and wanted to go back home, but my family gave me crap for it because they all love Mike and hate when I take him away. :) SOOOO, I had to sit around and wait for them to finish the game they were playing before we could leave (which took another hour), and when we got home, we were both so tired that we checked our emails, went upstairs, and crashed for the night. All in all, it was a super-fun Christmas; my favorite part of course being spending time with my wonderful sweetheart. What a wonderful man and what a wonderful Christmas. We can't wait until next year when we'll have a sweet daughter to share it with!