Christmas 2012

We received a snow fall on Christmas Eve this year!

All the kids loved playing in it. We were lucky enough to have Randall and Christy, Greg and Kami's families in town.

My kids needed a tutorial on how to make a snow ball and snowmen.

On Christmas Eve it was Christy's birthday so we celebrated her birthday with pie and presents.

We played games and enjoyed playing in the snow.

That evening we were all preparing our Christmas Eve dinner when we realized that a few of Travis's Christmas gifts (for his kids) got sent down with Greg.

The men had to drop everything and meet Travis half-way to El Paso to get them their gifts for the next morning.

While the men were away we drove the kids around town looking at all the Christmas lights and then we came home and made cookies for Santa.

By the time the cookies were coming out of the oven the men arrived back at home and we enjoyed our Christmas Eve feast and acted out the Nativity. 

Benton was Joseph this year and the girls were Wise Men.

It was so fun to have a white Christmas.

Adalyn was fascinated.

Christmas morning was on a Sunday this year so we woke early and opened presents.

Everyone got what they asked for.

But there was one more surprise...

Everyone opened a present that held a Disney t-shirt and charm bracelets for the girls and stickers for Benton.

 Benton is a huge CARS fan so his t-shirt was Cars..

Alex got a Rapunzel t-shirt and Tori a Minnie Mouse t-shirt.

but...

there was more...

a letter from Santa was tucked under the tree and opened last.

Each child had a paragraph addressed to them and at the end of the note Santa announced that he would be sending the three oldest to DISNEYLAND!!

 They didn't know what to expect because they had never been before but everything that they had heard was very good. They were excited.

We hurried and got ready for church and then had a wonderful Brunch with the rest of the family.

It was a Merry Christmas!

After Christmas we headed up the river and had a family picnic.

We ate...

The kids fished...using chocolate as bait...

they hiked...Bruce almost had a near death experience showing Blake what NOT to do on the 4-wheeler.

the women played cards...

and the men visited. It was fun catching up with all our Hatch cousins.

For New Year's Eve Kami and I took all the kids to the park to roller-skate, play and eat pizza while the rest of the adults went to the Sun Bowl. They kids had a blast, then we came home for naps, a movie and a swim.
That evening the adults headed out for some fine dinning then back to the house for games, dessert and the final count down. The Johnsons were passing through town and stopped by to join our festivities. We had a HAPPY NEW YEAR!