Christmas Eve

My Christmas Eve started off not so good. I got up really early and went and got a tooth filled. Who goes to the dentist on Christmas Eve anyway? Then I had to go to my brother's house to get some gifts out his garage and closet that he was kindly storing for us. It was FREAKING cold and really windy, so I was really tense and somehow I threw out my back. OWWWWWWWWW! So then I had to drive a stick shift home with my back on fire and of course, my chiro was closed until Monday. Ugh! That shot my plans for making my first fruitcake ever. I even had Cam buy me some rum so I could make a real fruitcake. I've never had one, so maybe next year. The rest of the day was ok...I spent a lot of it on the floor icing.

Here are some pictures & videos from Christmas Eve. We typically spend Christmas Eve with my family, but since we did it earlier in the week, we spent Christmas Eve at our house with the missionaries, Jay & Cheryl and Casey, Brittny & Gavin. It was pretty low key, but nice. We had a little problem with the turkey earlier in the day. With the intent of saving oven space, we tried using the roaster for the first time but it burned the bag and let all the juices out, so the turkey ended up in the oven after all. It still tasted pretty good, even though it was a tiny bit more dry than usual.

After our small feast, we got together in the living room to sing carols, read the account of Jesus' birth and open some gifts. There is a video at the bottom of this showing our fantastic caroling skills!

When we were at my mom's house for Christmas, Laney got bonked in the nose with a wooden silverwear holder. She kept picking at it, so we finally put a bandaid on it. Here she is showing how sad her "owie" made her.

Currently serving in our ward are Elder Denton from Houston and Elder Seve (se-vay) from New Zealand. Denton said we had a pretty typical night, the same as what his family usually does. We asked Elder Seve what Christmas traditions he had and he said they usually have a pig roast, since it is summer there. And yes, we made sure he has been able to sample true American fare and he had his first ever PB&J and Mac & Cheese (what I call yellow death). Elder Seve taught Clint, Casey & Denton how to do a traditional Maori Christmas dance. Below is a short video clip of that. As a show of our gratitude, we got both elders a pair of wool socks, since they've been freezing this winter and they don't have a car.














Of course after all the apparently boring stuff (according to Clint & Corbin who made it a point to let us know what a snoozer the night was) we continued our 8 days of Christmas and the kids got to open another gift. Cole was ecstatic about his new baseball book. Cade got a set of Pokemon cards he was VERY excited about. Corbin loved his Spiderman hoodie, Laney got a new doll named Kelly, and Payton opened some big dangly earrings. Another great gift night. What a bunch of spoiled kids!