Christmas Time

Christmas Tree Hunting
I don't even remember when we went exactly... I want to say Thanksgiving Break, but could be wrong. We caravaned with the Atkinsons to a spot about an hour and a half away from Anchorage.

It was quite fun, even though we didn't score a tree, but the Atkinsons found a Chugach beauty. And although I have no photo proof, Julie and I were there as well.

Ward Christmas Party
We actually got to go this year! Last year I was wiped out at home with a newborn.

There was food, and of course the dessert table was the best part. And there was a Nativity program. My favorite part was seeing all of the young children scurrying up to see the Baby Jesus. Too bad it was a life-less doll.

I accompanied most of the songs in the program, and Brig got to sing a solo. He even dressed up for the part. He sang, "The Shepherd" from The Forgotten Carols.

Christmas Eve
Since plane tickets to UT from AK are heinously expensive, we spent the Holiday up here. Thankfully the Atkinsons once again let us crash their festivities.

My mouth is watering just thinking about the food. We had Clam Chowder and Scones. Yum!

And Oliver graciously let Andy and Brig play in his new teepee... I wish I had a good picture of Andy and Oliver playing in it together, but since they are young and active I only got blurry pictures.

And Jake even let Andy try on his sweet hunting hat.

And amidst the opening of presents and skypeing with their family they timed Brig and I in our race to open and get into our pj's. I once again destroyed Brigham. :) The whole family got pj's to match the ones that Brig is wearing. We showed our Aggie pride this year.

And I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but Jake is an Art therapist. I remember how excited I was when I first found that out. Well, the Atkinsons gave us this print of some artwork Jake did for Oliver's room.

I'm really excited to hang it up.

Christmas Day
Once again, we were spoiled this year. We kept it pretty low key with presents from each other, but it looked like we hadn't even started when we were finished with those.

Brig chose a Kitchenaid for his Christmas present. I gave him a couple options, and that one won out over the snow tires for his bike.

I got new boots! And I love them. I also scored a sweet camera FOR FREE! At Brig's work party they had a lot of prizes and this $200 camera was what we scored. I had Brig wrap it for me and put it under the tree. :)

Andy, of course, got the most presents.

Grandma Shirlene sent up stockings for each of us. This was after I had already made our own. I don't know if I would have made them if I knew some were coming up. Once Andy found this clementine in his stocking everything stopped until he had consumed it. We've learned that he's quite fond of them.

One of Andy's gifts from us was this little soccer ball. It's been a pretty big hit. The biggest success of a present, however, was this awesome pirate ship my mom sent Andy. He loves it and has played with it every day.

He also got TONS of clothes, which I am very grateful for, and a Hand Puppet book, and a Dr. Seuss book in Russian! I thought that was pretty cool.

Grandma and Grandpa Moore gave him some cute walrus pj's, and we got this awesome food storage book with accompanying bags. From Great Grandma and Grandpa Young we got a Glenn Beck book, which if you knew them you would not be surprised. They are big fans of Glenn Beck. Andy got some gloves from them.

The McCumber's (Brig's eldest sister's family) package just recently arrived and it was fun to have an extended Christmas. They gave us some awesome gifts! Andy's favorite was this blanket that everyone helped to make for him. As soon as he opened it he started laying down on it. I was dying from the cuteness of it.

I have mentioned before that my family always has a theme for our gift giving. This year was "The Muppet Christmas Carol." My mom had us this year. Here are our family theme gifts:

The Movie - obvious how it fit the theme of "Muppet Christmas Carol"
"Only one more sleep till Christmas..." - the advent
"A pair of mittens that were made by your mother..." - the fleece mittens
"No cheeses for us meeces..." - the bag of Gossner's squeaky cheese

We scored big in the food storage area. We got a mill grinder from my parents, and the awesome book with accompanying bags from Brig's mom I mentioned before. I think I might actually be able to do the bag system. Not too overwhelming. We also got ingredients for my mom's Cinnamon Currant Bread. Brig was really excited about that one.

One of my presents this year was from my mom. She made me two t-shirt quilts! One she called the "spiritual" one because it was my shirts from Girl's Camps, EFY, Youth Conference, institute, LTC, etc. And the other one she calls my "secular" quilt, because it has shirts from track, Middle School, High School, school trips, family reunions, and college.

I really need a hutch of some kind for all of these awesome quilts we have.

Our favorite part of the day was being able to talk with family. We video chatted with mine while we all opened the theme presents. It was awesome. We were planning on skypeing with Brig's family the day after Christmas, but didn't get to until like a week later. It was so fun to see everyone!

I don't know what future Christmas Holiday's will hold, but I'm grateful for all of the great memories we've been able to create as a family so far.