Christmas 2011

We had a wonderful Christmas! We spent Christmas eve with the Coxes until 3:00. We went and saw Sherlock Holmes in the morning and then talked to Taylor (in the Philippines) in the afternoon. We spent the remainder of the evening until Christmas day at 1:00 with my family. We had our annual Christmas eve feast and program. This year my dad introduced us to a new game in which he bought enough gifts for everyone and had my mom wrap them. He then read Twas the Night before Christmas and whenever he said the word "the" we passed to the right and when he said the word "and" we passed to the left. When the book was over we all got to open our gifts; it was fun! We also got to Skype with Michael. Before he called us his girlfriend Hillary came over with a gift to our family. It was a video she had put together of clips of Michael doing missionary work in Korea. It was really neat. Then we got to talk to (and see!) Michael! It was so great. We love having a missionary!

Christmas morning we opened all of our presents from each other and from my family. I always love watching people open gifts I pick out for them. Trevor surprised me with an iPad! I am so excited! We were so spoiled by my parents! My favorite gift was a gold necklace from my mom that I'll blog about separately. I had the stomach flu, so after opening gifts I went back to sleep for a few hours and got up in time to head back up to the Coxes.

We met up with the Cox family at G&G Coxes house and had dinner there. After that we went back to Trevor's parents house and opened our gifts. We were spoiled again! Jeanette planned fun games with gift cards and candy as prizes. It was so fun!

I love the Christmas season. I'm so grateful for the Savior's birth and for Heavenly Father's gift to us, His Son.

(Due to having the stomach flu I didn't take very many pictures. I have stolen most of these from family members. Thanks to those who took pictures!)

Logan + Mary

Trev + me

Cute parents

Kiersten + Toddy

Brent + Tasha

me, Laura, Karrissa, Mary

Dad reading Twas the Night before Christmas

Passing the gifts for the game

Buchanan's talent for the program

Cute boys singing Jingle Bells

Sophie girl reading I Believe in Santa Claus

Logan playing the trumpet

The Rife girls playing/singing A Christmas Lullaby. I love singing this song with my sisters with my mom playing the piano.

Acting out the Nativity

Watching the video Hillary made

The "zip-up team" in Christmas jammies from Nana + Papa

Christmas morning in our Christmas jams. I love that they are Mom's "signature color"

Girls minus Mary (she had already changed out of her jammies)

My prizes from the games at the Coxes. We all guessed how many Mike & Ikes/Hot Tomales were in this jar and I guessed right on - 490.