Christmas 2009

I have to say that I really enjoyed this Christmas. This is the first Christmas, since we moved away from family, that we didn't travel back to Arizona. We did miss spending time with family but it was so nice to go back to bed after opening gifts. I think our family may have a new tradition.

We spent Christmas Eve with Landon's cousin, Joe Norby, his wife Kristen and their 2 kids. They just live a few blocks away. It's nice to have family away from family. We ate a prime rib dinner and Kristen brought sugar cookies for the kids to decorate and leave out for Santa. The kids also got to open their new jammies. Stupid me, I didn't take pictures of the kids in their jammies that night so you'll have to look at the pictures below to see them.

Christmas morning began at 2am for one child. Karli was up checking her stocking for the goods left by Santa. The rule in our house is you can get up whenever you want and look in your stocking but you can't go in the room where the gifts are until the whole family is up at 7am. I always swore as a kid that whenever my kids got up and wanted to open presents I would just get up and let them. Ha! Doesn't happen. I feel bad now for the times my siblings and I got my parents up at the crack of dawn to open gifts. I didn't realize the amount of prep work that goes into getting ready for Santa to come.

Logan with his new shirt. His favorite gift was his video game, Modern Warfare 2.

Karli with all her loot. Her favorite gift was her new sewing machine. Unfortunately, we already had to take it back. It kept jamming and I couldn't figure it out. Karli wasn't to heart broken because she got to keep the money and is now saving for an Ipod touch.


Madison on her new Skitter car which was also her favorite gift. If you haven't ridden on a Skitter car come try Madison's, but only if you weigh less then 250lbs. It is so fun. Tommy checking out his football cards. His favorite gift was Madden 2010.On the evening of Christmas Joe and Kristen had us over for ham, potatoes and pomegranate salad (Hey Kristen, I still want the recipe for that salad). It was delicious. After playing a few games we headed home to hit the sack. Sadly enough I didn't take any pictures of us enjoying our food with Norby's.

7th Grade Christmas Choir Concert

Karli had a Christmas choir concert in December. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures or video of the concert. Landon went straight from work to the concert and I came just in time to see her perform. I had a Microbiology final exam. When we got home I snapped a picture of her in her choir outfit before she changed. They sang several different Christmas songs. Only thing they bugged me was when they sang what was supposed to be We Wish You a Merry Christmas they changed the words to We Wish You a Happy Holidays. Grrrrrr!!! I guess we don't want to hurt any ones feelings. Whatever!!!

The 7th grade choir, in my opinion, out sung the 8th grade choir. They sounded awesome. Karli is becoming quite the singer. And when did she start looking so grown up?

Tommy's 1st Grade Christmas Program

The whole first grade at Stapleton Elementary did a Christmas program for all the children's parents and family. All the kids had their Sunday best on. For Tommy, he wore better then his Sunday best because I can rarely get him to wear a tie to church.

The kids sang about a dozen Christmas songs. Some of the songs included dancing and hand jives. It was so cute. For those of you that know Tommy then you know there wasn't a dull moment. This kid is a ham.

Tommy with his teacher, Mrs. Nanez.
Tommy with some of his buddies


Tommy being......well......Tommy

If I can figure out how to put video on this blog I will post a song or two for you.

Leader of the Pack

Madison received the Leader of the Pack award. Every month each teacher gets to pick one student in their class to receive this award and Madison was chosen in December. She got to go on stage and have all kinds of nice things said about her. We are so proud of Madison.

Who Kidnapped Santa

I have to say that this was the best ward Christmas party I have ever been to. The whole day I was dreading going to it. Ward parties are always crowded, loud and chaotic. They are usually not very entertaining either. But this one was different. It was so laid back. Each family attending brought a blanket to sit on and for dinner they had 6 foot sub sandwiches.

A sister in our ward wrote a little play about Santa being kidnapped and the ward members tried to figure out who did it. We were all aloud to question the "suspects." They had different ward members dressed up as different characters. Then they would send different families in the ward to different areas of the church building to find Santa and the family would come back with a different character. Each character got to tell where they saw Santa last and plead their case as to how they couldn't have done it. Our family got asked to check the Relief Society room for Santa and we came back with Rudolph.

Ali Lund was an angel

Sandy Vasquez was a Princess

Kay Harper was Rudolph and Connie Greer was Mrs. Claus
Faith Sam was Cindy Lou Who
Rob Reuel was the Grinch and his son Paris was Max (the dog)
Santa was played by a Brother from another ward so I don't know who he was.

Others not pictured: There were 2 elves played by Zach Hadlock and Joseph Tarry

Farewell to an Elder

In December on of our favorite missionaries got transferred out of our ward. Tommy loved Elder Ormstrum because he was always willing to play football with Tommy. We enjoyed having Elder O. over for dinner on several occasions and we're so glad he stopped by to say his goodbyes and take a family picture with Willie Parker.