CHRISTMAS DAY!!!

We can't have Christmas Day without our Christmas Eve program! We sang songs while the kids portrayed the 'Nativity scene'. We also watched a very good video put out by the church. Then the kids got to open gifts they got for each other. 

Well, with Bret's family, Lisa's family and Kari's family all here for Christmas, all the presents didn't fit under the tree very well. Chad & Luann and Tami's family came too, but had already opened their gifts at home. 

I got up early Christmas morning to start some cinnamon rolls and just had to take a picture of all these gifts!  We sure are all blessed! 

 Next up was Kingston, London & Dempsey!  We woke up to a
"WHITE CHRISTMAS"!!!

Chrismas Eve the "pajama elf" brought all the kids new Christmas jammies!!  He rang the doorbell and when the kids opened the door, there was a big basket of wrapped gifts for each of the kids containing cute PJ's for all of them!

Next up was Rivers and Elijah, wearing their Christmas jammies!

Blake & Colter sporting their Christmas PJ's!

Lilly in her cute little 'jammies'. 

Let the fun begin!  Because Christmas was on a Sunday and church was at 10am, everyone just did their thing!!

The floor was knee deep in boxes, wrapping paper, bows and ribbons!

All our kids got together and surprised us with a HUGE big screen TV!  Wow, did I say how HUGE it is? Its a 'smart' TV and has many features we will have to learn how to work! Thanks so much!

It was great having help to put it up!  First they had to put the mount up on the wall.

Put the hardware on the TV to hang it!

Then up it went!!  Wow, we just thought our old TV was kind of blurry because our eyes were getting old.  Nope, now everything is crystal clear in HD!  We sure have nice kids! I think they will enjoy the new TV too!!

Christmas Pictures of my kids!

Tami & Ryne Peters family with Blake & Colter!

 Reed & Natali Crosby with Royal, my grand-dog.

 Lisa & Barry Keime with Lillian!

 Bret & Becki Crosby with Kingston, London, Dempsey & Ivory!

I didn't have any pictures of Mark's family or Chad's, sorry kids!

Pre- Christmas Concert!!!

Lisa got us all tickets to go see.....

He puts on a very nice Christmas concert. We all loved it!  He's quite the performer!

 We didn't have time to eat dinner before the show, so all of us went in to get our seats, but Bret & Becki went to get a sandwich at Jimmy-Johns. As they were sitting outside eating, some guys asked if he could buy Bret's tickets- he was willing to pay him $350!! He said his wife was really wanting to see the performance! Bret was tempted, but declined!

 Lisa & Barry

Bret & Becki

It was a very enjoyable evening with some of our kids and really got us in the Holiday spirit!!

the DAYS before CHRISTMAS....

Its really pretty fun having my birthday a couple of days before Christmas because usually I have my kids and grandkids around!

This year LaVerl took me over to see a movie and when we came back and walked into the house, everyone jumped out and said, "SURPRISE GMA!"  The grandkids were jumping up and down and blowing their little horns and noise make and waving big balloons!  They were so cute and so excited! Tami brought me a delicious "Nothing bundt cake" that was to die for!! I almost did, I ate so much of it!!

 

Reindeer pancakes are always a hit!

Now that's a Christmas Carrot!!!

Getting all bundled up for our 'Candy Cane' hunt!

R

 Painting Christmas puzzles

 SNOWMEN DINNER

 Cousins playing and

 .....the son in laws working.  Kirk and Ryne put felt chair protectors on the bottom of all my chairs!  What a difference in the noise level!

 

 More cousin fun!

Its been wild and crazy, and I love it!!

When it gets too loud and out of control, we turn on the electronics! They would rather watch this little tiny computer than the TV! 

Elijah & Ivory - again with the tiny phone to entertain them!!

DEC. 3rd- 4th Trip to DALLAS, TX

We made a flying trip to Dallas, TX because Reed offered to sell us Natali's little 2006 Mazda 3!  She needed a newer car to take her clients around in and we needed a newer car too. This car is 11 years newer than the Lexus with 200,000 less miles on it! Natali was pretty sad to see 'Alice' go, but we will take good care of her!

They showed us a really good time in Dallas.  They took us to this little town called Grapevine that was all decked out for Christmas. It had lots of unique shops, their favorite is one that sells every kind imaginable of oils and vinegars and we tasted almost all of them.

 Reed treated us to a really good lunch at a place close to their house called "Remedy". We had 'chicken and waffles', a famous Texan dish and an apple cider vinegar drink that was -- I'm sure very good for us.

 Later that evening they took us to the Gaylord Texan, a huge resort/convention center where Reed had bought tickets for us all to see "ICE". They fly in 40 ice sculptors from China to carve ice figures for display to tell a Christmas story.  This year it was Santa Claus is Coming to Town. There was a big crowd and line to wait in, but it went pretty fast. We first went into a big room to watch a video of how it was all made. (2,000,000 pounds of ice is brought in. Each chunk maybe weighs 100 pounds? The workers have to work in freezing cold temperatures.) Then we all were given big, warm, long coats with hoods to wear before we enter the display because they have to keep the temperature at 9 degrees!!  

 This just struck us as funny!!  9 degrees, freezing cold,

ice all around...and a fire extinguisher!

 Everything is made out of ICE!!

 This was really cool.  You could walk up these ice stairs and then slide down an ice slide.  We opted out of doing that.  We were so cold by now, we wanted out!

 This was the final display-- THE NATIVITY! It was all crystal clear ice and was so beautiful it was breath taking!!

 We loved it!  Such a treat for us! Thank you Reed and Natali for showing us such a great time in Dallas!!