A Crazy Christmas

Christmas was busy this year!  Louis' sister came home from her mission the Sunday before Christmas and his older brother flew in from Pennsylvania with his family on Christmas Eve.  That led to a lot of family fun for 5 days straight!

Let's start before the busy stuff though.  We were able to stay home as a family for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning again this year.  It is so nice being together with nothing much to do.  We started out our Christmas Eve celebrations with a candlelit dinner together.  It was fun and may become a tradition.  We had ham, red potatoes, pears, corn, and rolls.  

After Louis and I finished dinner and were waiting on the girls we talked about the birth of Christ

 and filled in a paper nativity I had printed out.

Then we were able to open up our jammies and a new Christmas movie.  This year we got Home Alone, one of Louis' favorite Christmas movies.  Once we all changed into our jammies Mary helped me pop popcorn and we watched our movie.  

Then it was time for bed!

While we were sleeping Santa made a visit to our home!

On Christmas morning our kids actually slept in!  I don't understand why they don't 

sleep in on days when I'd actually like them to.  I ended up waking them both up!  

It was such a fun Christmas morning!  We started out opening our stockings from Santa.  This year he left us each a small box of cereal to eat for breakfast!  What a nice and thoughtful Santa.  After we ate our cereal we opened up our gifts.  

Avery and Mary both enjoyed their morning and their presents.

Once all the presents were opened we cleaned up then packed up to leave!  We headed down to Louis' Grandparent's house for Mary's nap then over to the Brandley's to be with family.  

We gave and received presents, talked, laughed, ate, and had a great time!  

The day after Christmas we had Brandley family pictures.  

It was the first time having the whole Joel Brandley family together in quite some time.  

After pictures we went to lunch then Alisha, Megan S, Megan W, Celestial and I went shopping.  

On Saturday Avery and Mary got to go sledding for the first time!  They both loved it!  

Later in the day it was Louis' little brother's court of honor.  

On Sunday it was Louis' sister Kamila's homecoming.  

She did a great job, she really enjoyed her mission and served so many.  

Such a great example that Kami!

Later in the evening we headed over to a Keeffer family Christmas party.  I didn't bring my camera in and got no pictures.  While we waited for dinner to be ready we all sat around talking.  The little kids LOVED playing with Gizmo!  Dinner was delicious and dessert (cherry berries on a cloud) was great!

After the party we headed home from our long weekend away.  It was so great to be around family for so many days.  It was a lot of late nights for our girls, but lots of fun!