Christmas 2016

Arden helped a lot with the present wrapping this year, and would often ask if I had any presents she could help wrap.  Thanks to her, I wasn't up on Christmas Eve frantically wrapping into the wee hours of the morning...I just had a few presents to finish up while watching "It's a Wonderful Life."  It was nice to be done around 10:30.

Usually, after I arrange all of the presents and everything, I take a picture of the tree in the dark....however, this year I didn't.  I didn't forget, but we had three (THREE!) strands of lights go halfway out in the week leading up to Christmas.  Preston didn't have any time go to through and figure out the problem or re-string the lights, so needless to say, the tree looked a little "patchy" in the lights department.  So, instead I took some closeups of the sections that still worked.  Kind of different, kind of fun.  

 When I was young, I always wished we had one of those "professional" looking trees, with all-matching ornaments like you see at some houses.  I couldn't understand why my mom wanted such a rag-tag looking tree with all the homemade ornaments on it.

Now I do, and she was right.  I love those hand print ornaments and pictures of the kids and popsicle stick snowmen!

 Preston had a little cold, and started some serious snoring around 2 a.m...at which point I went to sleep on the couch next to the Christmas tree.  We had warned the kids not to come down before 7 a.m. (yeah, right)...so when Dax and one of the girls (I didn't open my eyes to see who) first tried to come and check out their stockings at 4:30 a.m., I surprised them by being in the room and sending them back to bed.  I was worried they would try to come down every 10 minutes for the rest of the night, so I was happy that the next time they tried it it was about 6:15.  I let them look through their stockings, but they didn't get to open any presents until we woke Preston up at 7.

Arden REALLY wanted to get Daxton this giant stuffed dog for Christmas, even though he is now a manly 8-year old.  He didn't mind.

 Arden was happy with the super soft pink blanket Santa brought for her.

Cora also got a stuffed animal, since you know, we just don't have enough of those around!

We took turns opening presents, and Preston got a new pair of sunglasses.  (Olive is enjoying Cora's new blanket)

 Oh, and here is a shot of the kids in their Christmas pajamas:

All during the night and morning while we were snug in our beds or cozy in our house enjoying Christmas morning...outside it was snowing like crazy!  We had 9 a.m. church to get to, so we put our boots on along with our church clothes and walked over.  It was just sacrament meeting, and almost all singing, so I loved it.  The primary did a few songs.  I never get tired of watching the kids sing the primary songs, they did so great!  I realized that I only get one more Christmas after this one of Arden in primary...after that she'll be in Young Womens!  Crazy.

Here is our deck, with about 6 or so new inches before church.  By the time we got home, it was more like 8!

 After church (and shoveling the driveway...yuck), we started the Christmas rounds.  The roads were HORRIBLE, but we made it to my Grandma's house in one piece.  My cousin Audrey was already there and had shoveled her driveway.  She was snuggly warm inside, but we brought her a new blanket anyway, with the names of all of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren on it. I hope she likes using it.

After that, we went to my mom and dad's house.  Amanda's family and Val and Josh both decided it was too dangerous to drive, so it was a little weird that it was only my family and BJ there to open gifts.  But it was still fun to be there and the kids all enjoyed finally getting to open the presents that they had been eyeing under Grandma's tree for the last couple of weeks.  I stink and didn't take any pictures for some reason.

After that, we slipped and slided our way to Preston's mom's house.  She always has yummy soup and other snacks for us on Christmas, which seems just right to me after all of the junk and candy I have generally been eating up to that point in the day.  Lots of Preston's brothers and sisters and their families were there, and it was nice to see everyone and the kids liked seeing what their cousins got for Christmas.  Again...no pictures.

Before we knew it, the day was nearly over and it was time to get home and go to bed.  On the way home we drove by the Layton lights, since we hadn't done it yet.  The trees looked so pretty with all of the new snow, and the kids especially liked how the lights moved to the songs on the radio station they had you tune into.

And just like that, it was over!  Only 365 more days until next Christmas....