.: christmas!

I love Christmas!! Especially all the SPARKLES! They are everywhere! It's so magical!

Our Christmas was most excellent this year!

A week before Christmas we went to the Jon Schmidt concert at Kingsbury Hall with my family. It was excellent, as usual! It's become one of my favorite traditions we do with my family.

Dinner at The Pie!

I also got to go watch my nephew in his school program. They did "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." It was SO cute! Holy crap, there were some point where I had a hard time containing myself! Kayzen played a puppy in it.

This Santa had blue earrings in his ears...that was a first for me!

Daren and I decided that we wanted to start a Christmas Eve tradition. So! We decided every Christmas Eve we would make pizza and cookies and watch a Christmas movie. It's something easy and something we can do when we have our own little babies. Until then, we invited Daren's parents, his sister and her kids over. We ate pizza and watching Home Alone: 3 (The kids picked it.) Not my favorite of the Home Alone movies...

Christmas morning Daren and I got up bright and early! I was too excited to sleep! We opened our presents, ate orange rolls that had been expired for 9 months (opps), and then headed to church with Daren's parents. I was a little disappointed in their program. The speakers didn't talk about Christmas at all. It was just like a normal sacrament, except we did sing Christmas songs. However, it was nice to go to church with his parents and the majority of his family.

He was helping me finish the rest of the Christmas wrapping...heart him!

Stockings!

It's a bacon press in the shape of a piggie! AH! It was my favorite gift I gave to Daren!

We love our puppy!

After church we went over to Daren's parents to help get food ready! About 30 minutes before we were starting the festivities with Daren's family my brother called and said Shane was calling in an hour...that was like2 hours earlier than we thought! PANIC!! I felt really bad leaving because we hadn't got to celebrate at all with Daren's family. Daren was half way out the door (He's so amazing) when someone suggested that we go a conference call with him and my parents. GENIUS! So we got everything set up and I was able to talk to Shane AND celebrate with Daren's family a little bit longer than planned. It worked out so perfectly! I am SO grateful for technology! Talking to Shane was so wonderful! His personality hasn't changed one bit!

Look how cute he is!!

I was in and out of people opening presents while talking to Shane!

HAHA! Oh I love my father in law! He fell asleep right in the middle of all the chaos! He must have been REALLY tired! There is no way I could have slept through all that noise!

After all the excitement died down in Logan, we left for Salt Lake to spend the rest of the evening with my family. When we got there, we ate dinner and then opened presents! But not before I had to wrap all my dad's gifts for my mom! Happens every year...After presents we went to the Christmas light house that plays music with the lights? You know what I'm talking about, right? This was his last year doing it and I wanted Daren to see it.

My mom got us all GIANT fortune cookies! It was SO random!

Monday, we had 2 Christmas parties on my mom's side of the family...sorry no pictures.

Monday evening we came home and played games with Daren's siblings. And we ate...a lot. I feel like all I have been doing is eating. I only have 2 pictures from playing games. Mostly because we took a lot of video. Have you every played the game "Quelf"? You should, it's hilarious.