Christmas Break Pictures

So far Christmas break has been a lot of fun (except for all that wrapping... which I did finish before Christmas Day....phew!) Here are a couple pictures from Christmas Eve at my parents house:


My brother Nathan and his family were here this year, and so was my sister Karissa and her family. The food was yummy, the pinata didn't break the first time through (in fact, it took several rounds through all the kids to break it, and even then it just kind of fell off the rope and the kids attacked it on the floor....whatever works!), the nativity went good (that's another one of those "reminds me of Christmas when I was little" things), and all in all Christmas Eve was a lot of fun! (Notice in the picture that Kayden, who was a wise man, is still holding on to his gift for Jesus.... looks like he's trying to hide it behind his leg or something... I'm pretty sure that's not how it went in the story....)


In my family we are a little short on boys (only 3 boys so far between me and my siblings), so Malia and Taisha were the shepherds... beard and all!

On Christmas Day we opened presents, stayed in our PJs until 5:30 (and really only got dressed because we had family coming over to have dinner, and we thought it would be nice to be dressed....) and just played all day. Here's how many gifts fell apart or just weren't right though:

-iHome for Kayden - not the right style, and his iPod wouldn't stay on the charger thingy
-Jeans for Kayden - missing the button
-CTR necklace for Taisha - fell apart when she carried it to me to put on for the first time, I put it back together, and it fell apart today at church in a totally different place!
-Jeans from Old Navy for Kayden - too short (sheesh he's getting tall, which is fine, if only his waist would keep up! They just don't make jeans his size...)
-Shirt for Malia - didn't fit
-Boots for Anaya - in a size 9 box, but actually size 8
-Clock radio for me (which I totally didn't need.... the 19 year old one we had was still working...kind of) - worked for one day, went down hill quickly after that, and I can hardly read the time now.... It's heading back to Sam's Club tomorrow.
-Wallet for Rik - couldn't fit all his stuff in the new one....I think he might need a man-purse.
-Extra Wii guitar for Rockband - didn't get the right one, so it didn't work with the game.
-Cute puffy vest for Malia - wrong size

So try and guess what I spent the rest of the weekend doing?! Everything except the clock radio has been switched out. Sheesh, you'd think that I shopped fast and furious for Christmas gifts and didn't actually look at the stuff I was buying... oh wait, that IS what happened!

I took the kids sledding on Saturday with Melanie and Trevor and their kids. The hill was really slick, and my favorite part of the day was sitting in the van (yes, I went sledding in the van....it's freezing in the snow, you know?!) laughing at the kids trying to get to the top of the hill, and slipping all the way back down to the bottom! Even better was when one of the big kids would try to help one of the littler kids, and they would both end up at the bottom of the hill. They loved it though (and of the several different types of sleds we had (plastic disc, flat rug-type, rubbermaid 2-person sled, and tubes), they said the tubes were the most fun.