Christmas Day

Newland started Christmas morning festivities by eating some chocolate. Inside the candy was a surprise.

One-armed Glen is trying to help Newland with his new whistle.

I'm always happy to get updated photos of the families. Looks like Newland recognizes these photos.

On to opening more gifts.

Stop for a few minutes to FaceTime with Klarissa's missionary sister Mariah.

On with the gifts.

Ben got candy.

Newland did a great job putting all the trash where it belonged.

Watch out Newland! Looks like potty training is in your near future.

Newland showed us how he could run super fast with his new Lightning McQueen slippers on his feet.

More family photos. Sweet!

Our little granddaughter apparently spent a lot of time making homemade gifts for everyone this year. These were the first two gifts under our tree.

Brooke made Glen a puzzle.

She made me some beaded artwork. According to Dallas, Brooke's gifts were the highlight of his Christmas. I must agree she had put a lot of thought and effort into her gift-giving this year.

Sarah's family's adorable family portraits. Hmmm, just waiting for another family to send us theirs...

 Ben is admiring the silhouette Christmas ornaments we got of Eli and Carson.

Glen took it upon himself to cook everyone Christmas breakfast French toast. He just loved the fact he could use his right arm a bit more each day.

Rachel had given me a Christmas card the night before and her wish for Christmas was for it to snow. When I opened the blinds Christmas morning, what did I behold but a vision of Rachel's wish that had come true.

We had some snow angels taking care of keeping our driveway clear. One of our neighbors cleared it off first. Ben had a couple of different turns shoveling and Abe even got a turn as well removing the snow. Ben was probably the only one on the street out shoveling without a coat on while the snow was falling.

Everyone wanted to put the snow to good use, so they donned their snow apparel, grabbed their sleds and were anxious to get out on a snowy hill to see how far they could slide.

Looks like all that sledding made someone hungry. I love this next sequence of pictures. It depicts perfectly Carson "getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar" so to speak.

Eli, Spencer and Dallas were being electronically entertained.

Brooke and Caroline were hiding out from everyone playing Legos in our closet.

Madison was modeling her Santa outfit and showing us her toothy grin.

Rebecca and Sarah were enjoying looking through all the Christmas cards we had received.

While Abe was helping with dinner by carving the turkey.

 It had been a fun, snowy Christmas day to remember.

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

Ben decided to take advantage of the Brighton Ski Resort special--dress like Santa and ski for free.

That's not the only Santa we saw at our house. A miniature version of Santa Claus appeared on our front porch right in the middle of my side of the family's annual Christmas Eve dinner party.

Klarissa decided to surprise Abe (and us) with a trip to Utah for Christmas.

They got here just in time for the Christmas program. Glen got busy getting everyone to write down their name if they had something to contribute to the program.

  When I went to get the children from the basement, this is what they were doing.

 And this little guy was off doing his own thing.

Up first was the Excell family. They posed for a family photo when they first arrived and now I wish everyone had posed for individual family photos. Cute!!

 Sarah made a Christmas music video featuring Eli and Carson and it was adorable.

A duet of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" consisted of Abe singing the first part of each line with Newland chiming in on the last word.

Rachel played a piano solo.

Brooke showed her stop animation video which she has won awards for at the school Reflections contest.

Preston also entered the Reflections contest at his school with an awesome poem he had written. He was too shy to read it, so Andy read it for him.

Nani did her version of a musical original poem with a unique instrument constructed out of cardboard and elastic bands.

Zack read a story about a bell without a clapper.

Speaking of bells...the children loved it when they were invited to ring their bells while singing "Jingle Bells."

Looks like little Madison is not going to be the baby of the group for long.

Sarah is having a baby in March. Klarissa is having a baby in April. And Kaelyn announced she is having a baby in May.

Well enough of the Christmas Eve celebration! It was time for everyone to go home and get to bed so Santa could come.