'Twas the Night Before Christmas

Christmas Eve was a very eventful day, but I'll get to the events of the actual "day" in a later post. This one is dedicated to just the evening.

We had an amazing dinner of steak and crab legs. Mmmm...

And then an awesome reenactment of the first Christmas

The Wise Guys

The Heavenly Angels

Mary and the "wonkey"

Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus

Samuel the Lamanite jumping off the wall

The Good lookin' Shepherds

Mary and her stand in baby Jesus

Andy played 3 different parts. He was Samuel the Lamanite, Joseph (as requested by Lexi) and then a shepherd because Brig was a shepherd and Andy wants to do everything with his daddy.

Ezra was baby Jesus, until he got hungry. I had to feed him part way through. Thankfully the Snowman covered for him.

I was the "wonkey," which is a cross between a donkey and a wolf. Lexi had an awesome wolf hat I borrowed for my costume, so that's how we got the wonkey.

At the end of the nativity scene we had some music, including a couple songs on chimes.

After the music, we opened our Christmas pjs. It's always a race to see who can open theirs the fastest. I believe Dustin whooped on us all this year. I at least have the excuse that I was nursing Ezra at the same time. :)

The pjs this year were Sock monkey/Paul Frank monkey themed. The t-shirts said, "I'm a Hicken. I know it. I live it. I love it." I'm sure most of you recognize the saying, but if not it's from a talk that was given by Ann Dibbs in the October LDS General Conference.

The Loganites

The Mendonites

Dustin, Nick, Christian, and Mel

Chase, Yeon Mi, and Brooklyn

Nicole, Talon, and Adalyn

Our family

Once pjs were opened and pictures were taken we put the kiddos to bed. (Well, Adalyn and Andy... the babies, aka Brookie and Ezra, stayed up for a little bit longer.)

Grandpa and Grandma Barney watched Ezra for us while we put Andy down for bed.

The adults then participated in one of my favorite White Elephant gift exchanges ever. It was so stellar. There were so many hilarious and amazing presents. It was so great have the Mendon Hickens with us for this as well as all the grandparents.

Me in my amazing and super sparkly Hello Kitty hat

Nick and his earpiece that he can plug into his iPhone. There were a lot of jokes make about walking around BYU campus with this awesome gift.

 Once again I managed to come up with a white elephant gift that was stolen the allotted number of times. It was so much fun to make and I loved seeing everyone's reactions.

The coveted white elephant gift

Meg and I showing off the sweet hats

The night concluded with the sibs hanging out and a few of us (Mel, Dust and Tal) falling asleep on Melanie's bed. It was a night to remember.