Christmas!!

 So Monday morning, bright and early, Dan took Evelyn to Walmart to pick out a fish.  She managed to pick a lively one, so hopefully he will last!  His name is Gregory.  She loves him very much.  She takes very good care of him.  I'm so proud of her - she found a way to get something she really wanted, she worked hard for it and now she's taking care of it. 

I had to run some errands in the morning, Mom and Sandi and I decided to help out a bit with Grandma Penny's clothing presents - we looked at what she sent, decided who it would fit and then filled in the gaps.  After, I met up with Sandi to talk a bit about some bad choices the boys had made Sunday night, then I headed home after a long day that I would much rather have spent with my family...  In the evening, we had a family home evening, we read the Christmas story from Luke 2 in the bible, then the kids opened their Pajama presents.  Dan did such a good job picking them out - we all loved them! (though apparently Eileen doesn't much like mine...)

Dan and I had mostly gotten stuff wrapped before - so after the younger kids went to bed, Anna helped with putting bows on presents while I stuffed stockings.  Everything was ready and we were ready for bed at a decent hour

 Christmas morning!  The kids came down and we all opened stockings, then we paused for breakfast.   After breakfast, we came back for the rest of the presents.  The kids loved it and loved their gifts.  It was funny to watch them open their gifts from each other.  James got Dan a plastic hook for his hand - totally sure that it was exactly what he wanted for Christmas.  I got a pink squishy toy.  :)  David was funny to watch, he didn't quite know what was going on - but he loved pulling stuff out of his stocking and he really loved roaming around the room and claiming all the stuff his siblings left lying around.  :) 

This is Eileen with her favorite Christmas gift - a Lucas the Spider plushie.  I think that even topped the yarn and books.... 

Dan got me the best gift ever - he got me a picture of Ruth and Naomi.  He is such a sweet and thoughtful husband.  He knows me so well and he is just so amazing!!!  I opened it up and started tearing up - and he says "so I guess I did ok?"  :)  We called his mom later to make sure they had gotten their gift and when she spoke about it she got teary too - so Dan won the Best Christmas Gift Prize two times over this year!  

After some fun with our gifts and a bit of cleaning up, we headed down to my parents house.  We opened presents and had a yummy late lunch early dinner of finger foods.  David was funny, because he would get excited about one gift and not care about opening the others!  We all had a wonderful time together!  

David has decided that he likes his toys - he thinks putting these finger puppets on toes is the funniest thing ever!  

On the day after Christmas, I took Anna to the American Doll store in Dallas to use her gift card.  She got her first real American Doll and a couple outfits.  She was quiet the whole time, but I think she really enjoyed getting to check everything out and pick her own doll and her own clothes.  She has played with it and posed it and dressed it up and chatted with her friend Nevaeh about her doll for most of the last few days.   

Most of the rest of our week was quiet - James and I have been a bit sick, so I haven't had much energy to go places.  Which is too bad because the weather was mostly good.  Dan had the day after Christmas off, but then went back to work the next day. 

Thursday, we had some friends over to play games - we had a fun time playing Code Names and Apples to Apples.  Anna and their oldest daughter played with us too, so it was a fun group! 

Friday, Dan and I went to the temple, we got to do some sealings for families that we have been doing the work for for a while now.  It was so neat to get those families finally connected! 

Saturday was another mostly lazy day - I was running a fever, and James was still sick too - hopefully this passes soon so we can enjoy our holiday! 

Church today was great - or what I got to be there for was great.  I came to choir, but we had a low turn out :( Fast and Testimony meeting was wonderful - Evie and Aaron both got up to bear their testimonies!  James wasn't feeling well - so I took him home after Sacrament meeting - it was just as well - we both had fevers when we got home, so we both took some Tylenol and took a nap.  We spent our evening playing Dominion with Aaron - he loves getting his hour up and getting to play with mom and dad.