A very Merry Christmas

This is going to be a Looonnnnng post, I have LOTS of Christmas photos!

We had a wonderful Christmas Day! It started off early for me... I got up and showered and then started making scone dough, bacon quiche, and fruit salad for our traditional Christmas morning breakfast at my brother Brian's house.



As you can see it takes a bit of coaxing to get us all up on Christmas morning... oh I remember the days when the tables were turned and the kids couldn't get us out of bed on Christmas morning... but it was usually at 6 am, not 9 o'clock!
We ate tons!!!



Than about 12:00 noon it was time to come back here and open our presents
...we always start out with our stockings...we got lots of useful stuff, like microwave popcorn, candy, gum, deoderant, bandaids, chapstick, scratch tickets, but this year, in Jim, Andy's and my stockings there were surprises! Sarah and Dave had surprised us with Beanie babies from the D.I. I got a beaver in a top hat, Jim got a lovely Bird of some kind with jewel eyes, and Andy got a crocheted doll, (reminded me of a voodoo doll!) I think Sarah won 2 dollars and Andy won 1 dollar on our scratch tickets, but at least we tried. Then we proceeded to have Jim pass out our presents. As usual, we take turns from the youngest to the oldest and open one present at a time until they are all opened.











I had tried to think of something to get for Jim to surprise him... so I got two Star Wars books, and then I found this stuffed Yoda, and when he opened the box they were in, Sarah and I said in a Yoda kind of voice, "your presents these are, mmmmm" so I took a pic of Jim and Yoda, and then next thing I knew I had this waiting for a photo as well....


It was so fun this year to have Sarah and Dave with us. If you haven't witnessed Sarah opening presents you are missing out... she gets so excited!!! Especially if you were able to surprise her with something and she doesn't know what the gift is.....





We all had a good time!
Dave did surprise Sarah, Christmas Eve after we had all gone to bed, he was worried about her opening one of the gifts he got her with all of us watching.... so they were in the family room with the lights of the Christmas tree on, it was a real romantic setting, and he gave her this small box, and said he knew they had been talking about getting married for a long time, so he thought he'd better give her this present, and she was all excited thinking this was it!! And when she opened the box it was a ring pop...hahahaha!

But he did give her a beautiful necklace with a pearl and 3 diamonds on it!!

Sarah had gotten Dave this poster from "the office", they watch "the office" all the time, and it was funny, Dave got Sarah a key chain with the same picture on it!!

Also they have an inside joke about bacon, and Sarah found this stuffed piece of bacon that says "I'm bacon" when you push a button!

Here are some funny shots of us during the opening of the presents:






As you can tell, Sarah and Dave got us some interesting presents....


Later in the day after having had a fun time opening presents, and I had told Jim what we had spent on Christmas...


we had Mom and Dad over for Ham and Sour cream potatoes, it's our traditional Christmas dinner.





We had a good visit, then Dave and Sarah packed up and went to his parents to spend the rest of the Christmas weekend with his family. It's hard to share your children with soon to be in-laws.... but it's exciting at the same time.
Andrew, Jim and I all had a relaxing rest of the weekend before I had to go back to work. We had a Wonderful Christmas.
Now we just get to ring in the new year next weekend, and wonder what changes or exciting things this New Year will bring!

The annual Christmas Eve Family Dinner

We had a busy week getting ready for Christmas. I took Thursday off, and Jim and I went to Idaho Falls to do some last minute shopping. Sarah picked Dave up at the airport and they did some shopping too. Andrew stayed home and played video games. Later in the evening I got all of our Christmas presents wrapped and under the tree and it looked like Santa had already come! It was nice to get it all done ahead of time though.
Every year Mom and Dad treat us to a family dinner at the Shilling house on Christmas Eve. That way no one has to cook, and we can visit with family we don't get to see very often. It's been Mom and Dad's Christmas present to us all for the last I don't know how many years. But every year it seems the number of people there is less and less. This year, with colds and flu, and with the roads being terrible we had even fewer there than normal. Nancy and I were the only sisters there!! But all 3 of my brothers made it. Andrew had to work at Walgreen's unfortunatley, but he had Christmas day off which was better.
It turned out nice and was fun to see everyone that made it! The food was good and we got a lot of photo's taken. And Sarah and Dave were hilarious. They went to the D.I. and bought ugly Christmas sweaters, and wore them to our family party. They said it was going to become a tradition for them every year! Those two, you can always count on a laugh when they are around,and I think they were made for each other.


Jim and I getting ready to chow down!

Sarah and Dave making "don't you love our sweaters" faces.....

Jared and Karlie

MaKella (Brian and Jennifer's youngest)

Whitney (Jill and Jared's new baby)

Kim and Angela

Jill

Brian, Jordan, Bridger, Jennifer, Dillon, Kylie (holding Whitney) Mom, Mia(Jon's daughter), and Dad

Nancy, Jeff, Jon and Ashley (sitting) and Gary and Carol behind them

Karlie, Brook, and MaKella

Karlie, Brooke, MaKella, Mia, and Whitney (crawling away)


Me, Dave, Sarah and Jim

Jim (I told him to look happy for a picture for a change and this is what I got)

Mom and Dad--the hosts of the party!! They do an awesome job!

Gary and Mia

Jesse (Angela's Dad) and Jim in a deep conversation!

Baby Whitney

Sarah and Dave

Kylie, Sarah, and Jordan

After the party, everyone left to do last minute shopping and other things. Jim and I went to Walgreen's to say hi to Andy and Sarah and Dave did too. They found us back trying on reading glasses and tried some on too.

hahaha.... Dave and his glasses remind me of someone on "Napolean Dynamite"
We had a good afternoon, then later we had Clam Chowder and had Mom and Dad over for dinner.
In our house it's tradition to open a couple of presents on Christmas Eve. I always get the kids pajama's and Christmas ornaments. I started giving them ornaments since Sarah was in 7th grade. I thought it would be nice that they have some when they went away to college or had a house and their own tree. (so far the ornaments are all still on my tree! I will be sad when the kids move out and take them) This year since Dave was here, I got him some too. We had a nice Christmas Eve.




Thanks Mom and Dad for a fun party every year!