Yay! I love Christmas Day! But most of the reason I love Christmas Day has nothing to do with me – I love that my boys love Christmas and I love to watch the excitement and joy they find in it. I love the spirit of the day, and all of the parties and festivities leading up to it. And I love having time to just be together as a family and enjoy each other!
Isn’t Christmas morning the best when you are a kid!? We always start Christmas morning off by reading the nativity story from Luke 2 and having a family prayer. I think it’s a good start to the day, and helps us focus – but I also know that the boys are secretly wishing Dad would read faster so that we can get on to the presents. :>
You should have seen the show Ky put on with his sword when he opened it! It was awesome!
After presents the kids played for awhile, we had yummy cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and the boys had an awesome dance party…
After a nice morning at home, we headed down to see the Grandparents. I love seeing our families on Christmas, but I really hate making my kids spend so much time in the car! That was Preston’s only complaint on Christmas – that he didn’t like spending the day in the car. Oh well, I guess that’s what we got when we moved to Ogden. First we went to Mike’s parents…
Then we went to see Great-Grandma Oveson….
And then we ended at my mom’s house where we had dinner and a family sleepover…
So this is how we all feel now:
But it sure was a good Christmas!!
We had 2 fun family Christmas parties – one on the 23rd with Mary’s family, and one on the 24th with Mike’s family. It’s nice to have everyone in our families live close enough to get together for the holidays. Here are a couple pics and highlights from the parties…
We went caroling and acted out the nativity with Mary’s family
And we had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner with Mike’s family – culminating with opening new Christmas jammies from Grandma and Grandpa! I didn’t take too many pics that night, but here are our cute Oveson babies, and Preston showing off his goofy vader.
One more fun Christmas Eve surprise was from Sister Bivens (our sweet relief society president). She brought over this super cute sand/magnet/tractor table that she and her daughter made, and matching tractor jammies that she made for our whole family! I can’t believe the time and effort she put into it all and the boys absolutely love the table!! She is so sweet and we sure love her!
Zach had his Christmas program at school on the 21st. The 1st and 2nd grade ALA classes got together and put on the cutest little Christmas play! He was an elf that was SO TIRED of working so hard for Santa. He did great – sang and even danced a little. That is until he moved next to the microphone… then the performer within him came alive! I think the microphone has magnetic powers on my oldest son. He could not leave it alone! He sang in it, blew in it, and made noises in it. Oh boy. I just sat there shaking my head and hoping that he wouldn’t do something really obvious or obnoxious in it. Luckily he made it through without any major mishaps, and we all left the program laughing and shaking our heads. That’s my Zachy! I think he needs a Karaoke machine for his birthday…..
So here he is singing and dancing so well…
And this would be after he got next to the microphone. Check out that mischievous smile…
My cute, wonderful baby brother Stephen and his beautiful, sweet bride Melissa got married on Friday, December 18th at the Draper Temple! It was such an amazing wedding day! They are one of those couples that you just look at and you think, “YES! This is perfect!” They fit each other perfectly, they bring out the best in each other, and they have so much of what’s important in life figured out. I’m just thrilled for them to begin their journey together!
Their reception was held at Cactus and Tropicals – which I loved! It was so pretty and easy. Loved it! It was fun to see family and friends, and I especially loved dance with all 4 of my boys on the dance fl0or!
Mike and I had to prove that even after 9 1/2 years of marriage we’ve still got it and can keep up with those newlyweds!!
Zach spent the night collecting gifts with his cousins. I think the people walking in the door felt ambushed by cute little boys in green ties! They were very enthusiastic about it!
Preston spent the night being cute and sweet and always, alternating between helping his cousins, playing with Kyle, dancing and enjoying the live music, and sampling the chocolate fountain!
And Kyle, well, you know Kyle. It’s hard to put a one year old in a room full of rocks and fountains of water, and expect him to stay out of both. I spent the first half of the evening trying to rein him in, but finally gave up and let him do his thing. So, he had great fun dipping his tie in the fountain, and either sucking the water off or flipping the water everywhere. When he wasn’t at the fountain he was over with the band dancing his little heart out. At the end of the night, one of the singers let him see his guitar, and said he was singing to Ky all night because he knew even if no one else cared, Kyle did!
We sure love Tee and Melissa and are so excited for them!!!!!!!
Preston had his preschool Christmas program on Saturday, and it was the cutest thing! All of the kids did so good! I love watching kids this age act out the Nativity – sweet, sweet, sweet! Preston got to be the Inn Keeper, and he was very proud of his line “No Room.” And of course when it came time to sing their Christmas songs, we had another performance of “Preston and the preschool backup singers.” :> He just sings so loud and with so much feeling and vigor! I love it! :> He’s generally pretty shy, but not when he’s singing! He gives it all he’s got! He’s such a sweetie! Just a couple pictures…
And I have to throw in this picture of Grandma and Kyle from the program – it’s priceless!
Visiting Temple Square at Christmastime is one of my very favorite traditions! The lights! The spirit! Love it all!!
I’ve been so busy and I haven’t blogged forever! So I figured I’d do a little “catch up” post with a quick look at some of our adventures over the last little while.
- The day before Thanksgiving we took the boys to the Christmas Tree Jubilee and to the Nutcracker. We had such a good time! I was interested to see how the boys would like the nutcracker – after all ballet isn’t something we do very often in a house full of boys. But they really liked it! By the end Zach and Pres were a little bored but still liked it over all. Kyle, on the other hand really really LOVED it! He sat mesmerized by it – he danced with them, clapped vigorously, and even cried at intermission when they closed the curtains. He kept reaching toward the curtain – so upset that they had gone away. It was awesome! What a funny kid!
- We had a fun, relaxing Thanksgiving! One of the highlights was making gingerbread houses at Grandma Oveson’s!
- Zach won first place in his category for the Reflections contest at his school. He made a video entitled “Beauty is Awesome.” We got to go to a fun awards ceremony where he got a trophy. Way to go Zach! We are very proud of you!!
- Mike finished finals! YAY! It was an intense semester, but he survived and did great!
- The boys favorite activity is sledding down our sloped driveway. They are out there everyday! They love it when Dad doesn’t get out to shovel before they get out there to sled! Dad doesn’t love it because then it’s so packed down he can’t shovel (or he really does love it because it gives him an excuse to not shovel! :>). They are going to be sad to learn we just inherited Grandma’s snow blower….
- We took the preschoolers to the Christmas Village for a tour with Mrs. Clause. It was a cold, fun field trip! Kyle was in a mood – which made it a bit more interesting, but overall it was good. Doesn’t Mrs. Clause look like she’s having so much fun?? It looks like panic to me!
- One down side to Christmas as a mom is that my ultra-logical Zach is having a hard time reconciling the Santa issue this year, but we are keeping our fingers crossed that we can at least keep one more year of the Christmas magic with him. (Though I think it’s too late). We aren’t super shocked that he’s doubting (and if you know Zach you probably aren’t shocked either). After all he is my son that at age 3 told me there is no way the Easter Bunny is really “because bunnies are bunnies and people are people and they can’t change back and forth. And bunnies can’t do what the Easter Bunny does.” Yes, that’s Zach’s super logical mind….
- We got all decorated for Christmas and have been having so much fun enjoying the Christmas season. I have all my shopping done, finally have cards out, have pictures out to everyone that needs them, and I’m half done with neighbor treats. So we are now at the point we can relax and just enjoy the wonderful holiday season!! We love Christmas around here!
- Mike’s friend Wendy (Nikki) came to visit from Jamaica! This is the second time this year she’s been here, and it was so fun to see her! She seems to like Utah so much we’re hoping she can move here sometime soon!
Well, that’s about all I can think of right now. Life is busy and good and we are having so much fun enjoying Christmas! Here’s our Christmas cards for this year. I couldn’t decide which one to use, so I printed some of both!!
