FamiLEE: Christmas 2012

Our Christmas this year was a full house! My family came to visit from the west to visit. Grammy, Christian, Catherine, Alex, and Jake all came! Jake just got off his mission a few days before and we were super excited to see him. Dave and Camille came down from New York and Laura was here with Brent too! It was so fun to catch up with everyone and just have time together.

(We missed having Justin and his family. Maybe next year!)

It was nice not to have too many things planned so that we could just hang out and enjoy each other's company. Christmas Eve we played a gift exchange game that Grammy brought and had lots of fun with tons of laughing.

Christmas morning we great too! Our boys tried their best to wait until everyone woke up to open presents. They got to go through their stockings which helped hold them off a bit from diving into the gifts under the tree. Grammy brought our family a great Casio keyboard piano all the way from Idaho. It was perfect and the boys loved it! Another favorite gift was the swim cap and goggles Alex gave to Kris!

We didn't have too many activities planned, which was nice so we could spend time hanging out and be flexible with our schedule. Grammy did take everyone to DC to do some skating. Laura drove the whole gang. Bless you both! Jack had been wanting to go ice skating for so long and he finally got his chance! Kris and I got some quiet alone time which was great! (The boys had had the stomach bug just before everyone had arrived for Christmas and now it was my turn, so it was nice to have the morning to recuperate.)

That evening, we had a family temple trip. Grammy, Laura, Catherine, Christian, Alex, and I went in to do some family history work, while Kris, Jake, and Brent took the boys to see the lights and visitor center. Then we all sent and had dinner at Vapianos in Bethesda. It was a great night!

On Sunday, we all went to Aunt Shari's house for a yummy soup lunch. Cousin Melodie and her family was there and so was Cousin Melissa and her boyfriend Craig. We had a great time and the kids did tons of sledding down Aunt Shari's giant hills. Just before we left, Aunt Shari shared with us some great family pictures of her, my dad, Uncle Shelly, and Mimi and Papa when they lived in New York. It was so fun to see what they all looked like when they were little and learn about all their fun adventures!