Christmas Vacation!

Christmas lived up to its expectations this year - MOST DEFINITELY! We had a fabulous Christmas Break and I enjoyed every minute of family time and fun that we were blessed with. As mentioned in an earlier post, there are no pictures from Christmas, but I do have some from our outings after Christmas. So let's begin.

With the kids out of school on the 19th our break began with finishing up those last minute details, grocery shopping and for Steve buying me some Christmas. He is always the last minute guy and I am always pleasantly surprised by the things he gets me. Since this was our very FIRST ever Christmas at home, (yes that is right people Steve and I in 9 Christmas's married have never been in our own home), I planned on baking some of our favorite Grandma Empey treats by myself. With all the plans and cooking ready were set and just ready for our company to arrive.

On Christmas Eve day I cooked. I woke up early to make Peppermint Bark (Yummy), Potato Cheese soup, and various other goodies and then assisted Nana in making stuffing and jello salad. Nana and Grandad arrived early in the afternoon to some very excited Children. We spent the day just hanging around and cooking and then at 5 we headed over to the Poulsen's for their traditional 'Favorites' dinner. This is a great tradition, at least in my opinion, and it was wonderful for them to invite some of us lonely transplanted families over. The idea is that each person picks a favorite food and that is what you eat, everyone's favorite. We ate Salmon and Sushi and soup and dips and just lots and lots of yummy food. It was fantastic. There were 4 families there, Us, the Poulsen's, the Turley's and the Salway's. The kids had a great time and the evening finished off with the kids doing the Nativity. Once we arrived home I shared a story with my kids and then we all opened our traditional jammies. We were all matching thanks to Nana and Josh loved his 'Berry Berry ME!' jammies. The front of them said, 'A very Merry Me!' Brooklynn could not get to bed fast enough, she was in such a hurry, apparantly sleep makes Santa and Christmas Morning come faster.

Christmas morning involved fun, gifts, more fun, some beautiful songs and Ukelele playing by Grandad and just basically a wonderful time. We also enjoyed a power outage and wondered if we would be able to get our Turkey cooked in time. All turned out well and we had another FIRST - our FIRST ever Turkey dinner at our very own house. It was yummy! The day turned out to be wonderful and relaxing and just fantastic. Josh was adorable and just over the top excited about the presents - he thought it was pretty cool. He is very protective of his presents and I have heard him scolding his brother and sister saying, 'this is mine Christmas'

The rest of our break was filled with fun, the wii, the snow and just enjoying being together. On New Year's Eve Day we joined some friends up at a snow park and the kids had a blast sledding. Josh loved the 'no' (snow) and the sledding. We went up again a few days later and again had a great time.

Looking back on 2008 I am overwhelmed by the blessing that we have. I look forward to the New Year and can't wait for the adventures that lie ahead!

This is what Josh looks like after sledding!