merry christmas 07

I hope everyone had a lovely and safe Christmas! We had such a nice time. My Christmas started a bit early on Christmas Eve morning when Danny surprised me with a beautiful necklace.


Have you seen the commercial where the man puts the diamond necklace on his wife as she sleeps and then she wakes up? This is how Danny gave it to me! So sweet!

On Christmas Eve, my brother came over and we have a fabulous dinner (cooked a whole ham with a really yummy cranberry glaze) and everything went perfectly. Later, we watched "A Christmas Story" (such a classic, "You'll shoot your eye out!" "Soap poisoning!"). Before any present opening or nuttiness, we sat down and had a nice Family Home Evening: we read the Christmas Story in Luke II and then we watched the short movie as well. We did a cute little questionnaire that I'd snagged from the Primary Presidency and made sure the kids understood why we celebrate Christmas, and that it's not all about Santa and present giving/getting. It was good to see that they understood, Christmas is about Christ!









Then we let the kids open one gift, their present from Grandma and Grandpa Haroldsen. We're so grateful for all the new games--we love games!

It took forever for the kids to wind down of course, but they eventually did. Christmas morning they bathed and got dressed really quickly (cuz for scrapbooking sake, I needed everyone to have combed hair and semi-matching clothing) and dug right in. The kids got their PlayStation 2 finally (yes, TWO--we finally lept into the 20th century there) and between Santa, us, Grandma and Grandpa Moore, and Uncle Mike, we ended up with 13 games. Holy cow! We were all spoiled with so much to be sure.

I got lots of gift cards, kitchen stuff, some scrappy stuff, and a big surprise, tickets to "Dancing With the Stars on tour" for this Friday! How fun!

Danny got jeans, a tool set, a fishing license, and an fm adapter for his ipod.

Sean got more pokemon cards.

Cam got trains and a remote control jeep.

Ethan got a fun Cars racing track.

Later, we went to my mother-in-law's with the rest of the family and had a nice Christmas dinner, Family Home Evening, and present exchange.

Can you believe all these boy cousins? And the baby Jack isn't even pictured!


My mother-in-law made each and every one of us these hats and scarves...can you believe that? That's a lot of knitting! It was a fun and busy day and the kids were ready for bed long before we ever got them there, but that's OK. Christmas comes but once a year.





I posted detailed pictures of everything in the Photo Album to the left. Thanks for looking!