Christmas Extravaganza!

Merry Christmas! We had a wonderful Christmas season, full of family, tradions and fun times!

We started it all out by doing our 2nd annual Bowling with the Jones' on Christmas Eve morning. We played boys against girls, with the girls having the kiddos on our team, so we "had" to have the bumpers up. Unfortunately, the boys still won - big time.

The Bowling Bullets (said in a thick English accent).


This was Brynn and Oakley's official job. They took care of each and every ball that came up, and only got their fingers smashed a couple times.

Christmas Eve night we spent with the Nielson family, having dinner, the nativity, and playing chimes. The chimes were ear-splitting loud, and you couldn't tell what song we were supposed to be playing, but what else can you expect from our once a year concert?

Christmas morning was fun! The girls were so excited! Kirk had rigged up a trap (a string with bells on it taped across the stairs) to catch any girls trying to go downstairs early to see what Santa had brought them. The girls didn't even try, but it kept me up all night thinking I kept hearing the bells ring.

Brynn was at the funnest age this year for Christmas. She asked for and talked about getting a "fridge" for Christmas at least 10 times a day. She was so excited when she walked down and saw this beauty. I expect a serious chef to come from this!

We went to the dollar store (yes, we're big spenders) a few days before Christmas for all the kids to pick out something special for every person in the family. Noelle couldn't help but have to spend $2 on Kirk, because she saw these beautiful flowers and the perfect card and just couldn't pass one of them up. As you can kinda tell from the picture, Kirk totally got all choked up when he opened it up.

Lizzie wanted a jewelry box with a dancing ballerina, and you wouldn't believe how hard it is to find them! We would have been set if we wanted a Hannah Montana jewelry box or something, but that just wouldn't do. I had seriously gone to like 7 stores looking for one, and had just about given up. Kirk tried one last stop at Claires, and found one under a bunch of other stuff. It didn't have a price tag on it, so the girl only charged him like $3 for it, when he was willing to pay way more, just because we had been looking for it for so long. What a bargain! She was so thrilled!

Christmas Day we went from our house, to the Jones', to the Nielson's, and back to the Jones'. It was a continual party, but it was fun! Kirk and his four brothers all got these air rocket launchers. If you know Nielson boys, you'll know that this equalled about 5 hours of games and contests and fun. Unfortunately, I think most of our rockets either got caught up in the Nielson's tree, or went over a neighbor's fence, so we only came home with one. We'll have to find some more and have round two of the games.

Our parents were very kind to us, and are helping our kids to develop their talents, I think. So, we will be having Karaoke Nights and Tether ball tournaments on a regular basis these days! Come on over for the fun!

One last thing, if you have any projects or anything you need done, call me up, my life just got a whole lot free-er. On Sunday I got released from my calling as the ward Primary President, which I've been for the past almost three years. I have loved every second of teaching the 125-ish primary kids in our ward, and will miss it dearly, but am excited for the new ideas and ways of the new primary presidency. So, bring on your projects! Send them my way - I have time. Or maybe I'll just be better at blogging this next year. No promises, though.