Caroling
We had a great Christmas in California! It was so fun to see most of my family (we missed you John and Angie and families). Parker and Autumn got to play with their cousins. We were able to have fun and relax after this past crazy semester. Some of the festivities included:
- Family Home Evening about Eternal Families that was put on by Bella (with a little help from me). Pictures Below
- Parker played with his cousins and Autumn was held by her cousins, Aunts, Uncles, Grandpa and Grandma.
- 'Boys Night' AKA Basketball at the church.
- Christmas Eve caroling, started with cookie decorating and Reading the Christmas Story in Luke. (Songs: In a Little Stable and We Wish You a Merry Christmas, of course)
- A lot of helicopter game being played; four laptops in one room makes for quite the competition (check out the helicopter game at addictinggames.com).
- Opening Christmas Gifts; Parker loved it! He just kept wanting to play with whatever he opened, instead of opening the rest of his presents. He was really nice and opened Autumn's presents for her and showed them to her.
- Parker watching his Letter Video; sometimes with his cousins and sometimes on his own.
- Played the Wii (Paul actually hit my brother, Andrew, with the controller while playing tennis and my brother, Michael, hit the TV with the controller while bowling).
- Christmas Dinner with contributions by all. We did dinner buffet style this year. There are just too many people to do anything else! It was delicious!
- Christmas Gift Exchange game. The traditional white elephant gift game, but with good gifts. It was fun. After we were all done, everyone tried to trade with other people for what they wanted. I traded for a BYU clock to put in Parker's room and Paul traded for a digital clock that projects onto the ceiling, for our room. We made out pretty good!
- Many late nights, playing 'The Great Dalmuti' (a variation of Scum).
- A Baby Shower Lunch for my Sister in Laws, Stella and Trena, at Olive Garden.
- A trip to the L.A. Zoo (Parker got a candy necklace from his cousin and enjoyed that most of the time at the zoo, and he liked the animals too).
- Of Course we also watched a lot of sports; the BYU Bowl Game, BYU Basketball/Arizona the Celtics/Lakers game on Christmas, and the Cowboys/Eagles game a few days after...(0-4 for my teams) (2-4 for Paul's).
We had a lot of fun and were so happy to see everyone and spend time with them. Thanks Mom and Dad for letting us all take over the house! It really was a Merry Christmas!
