Christmas Eve Parties  

Posted by Amber

As stated in the last post, we had two parties this Christmas Eve.  Grandma JeanAnn hosted the Biggs/Christiansen party at 4pm and the traditional Wilson party was at 5pm.  We only stayed at the Biggs' party for about an hour before heading to Koreen's for the Wilson party, so the only pictures involve Matt's cousin's new puppy - isn't she adorable?
She's trying to convince Matt she's cute.  He thinks she's too little to be called a dog....

Even though we showed up to Koreen's at like 5:30/5:45, they still hadn't started dinner.  (I told Matt we could stay at JeanAnn's longer....)  Anyway, this year, Kim, Kari, and Kris decided we needed to play a game. Just a gift pass along where you have to trade if someone wants your gift, but you can't trade it back, you have to trade elsewhere first.  It was kind of entertaining to watch at times.


Our program gets shorter and shorter every year.  It used to be the grandkids would sing a song we learned in school, or played a Christmas tune on whatever instrument we were learning, but most of us are older now and don't bother.  So instead, Benjamin and Rebecca treated us to a few songs.
Jingle Bells

Since we have new members in our family, Grandma told the story of Ranny again. :)


Then after singing Christmas songs for a bit, I read the Luke 2 Christmas story while Koreen played Silent Night, after which we all sung Silent Night.  That's just tradition :) (Oh, and go me for not crying this year! I was, however, still sick, so I had to pause to cough a few times
:(  However, it still made Karen cry I noticed when I was done, which got me teary.  My mom used to be the one to read the story, you see....)

After Silent Night, it's present time!











 Christmas Eve is also the day David proposed to Kim :)








Sorry I didn't add some more captions, but I'm just not feeling it.  Besides, most of these are on my Facebook.

Early Christmas :)  

Posted by Amber

This year, we still don't have any kids.  Matt and I both had the 23rd and 24th off of work, and since Christmas is Saturday and then we have normal church stuff on Sunday - then back to work Monday - we had Christmas on Tuesday, the 21st after I had finished working. (BTW, I loved working from home - when I got off of work, I was home! I didn't have to drive for 35 minutes to get here. :) This probably helped with the decision to open presents.)

So yes, Tuesday afternoon, Dad and Gloria stopped by to drop off our gifts and to see our (clean) decorated living room since they were going to be in Tremonton over Christmas.  It was nice because we then had more presents to open :)  After I quit working, I went out to the living room and asked Matt if he wanted to have Christmas. (We knew pretty much everthing the other had bought, so we figured opening presents early would be a more effective use of our vacation time. Also, we have to call Matt's brother, Devan, at 7:15am on Christmas, so this way we can do the whole sleep over thing tonight and talk to him early.) Fortunately, I had just finished getting the last thing for stockings on Monday :)  Below is footage of the goodies :)  Sorry to any of my siblings who may or may not read this and then know what Mom and Dad got them, unless they ventured in a new direction and didn't get us all the same thing..... who knows?


 Me opening presents :)
 Kitten calendars from Mom and Dad
 Dragon Age Origins from Matt
 Mass Effect 2 from Matt
 Angels & Demons - to both of us
 Fallout 3 - to both of us, which Matt has been playing all morning :)
 Matt opening presents
 Need for Speed Hot Pusuit - I love his little kid smile :)
 Trying to get through the bubble wrap...
Fail.
He needed scissors, and I found it entertaining, so I took video :)
Ignore my voice - I've been sick
 
 Traditional toilet paper from Gloria
 The Ugly Truth - funny :)
 So this was in the cheap movies on Black Friday - I loved the original, so I decided to get this for me :)
 Fable 3 - this has had the most play time so far
 Tools from Dad and Gloria
 Cinco was loving the new jeans - literally. He kept rubbing up against them and rolling on them....
 So... when I decided to have Christmas early, I forgot the stockings weren't done.  I had to take them to the laundry room to fill them so we could finish Christmas :)
 Matt played Base Wars while he waited.
We almost forgot about the Wii Fit. (Matt was with me when I picked it up, so it wasn't wrapped and was at the back of the tree.)
Matt's stocking goodies - including Top Gear 13 and a squirmels :) Oh, and a toothbrush (his request)
We actually did video of opening the stockings, but I got snickers, truffles, a baby squirmels, and two new pairs of socks.

*News flash* So as I was finishing up this post, our doorbell rang, and our cute little Jackson from our primary class brought us a plate of goodies with his dad.  Such a cool family.  I'm going to miss our little class, even though they drive me crazy most of the time.

Anyway, I must now finally get ready (since it's about 2:30pm) because we have TWO family parties to hit tonight.  Good thing Grandma JeanAnn's is on the way to Koreen's, and that the Wilson party is starting at like 5pm (the Christiansen/Biggs party is at 4pm), otherwise we probably wouldn't make it to any of the first party.  Pictures to follow in a later post :)

Snow Day  

Posted by Amber

It's true - for the first time in my life, Nebo School District declared a snow day and cancelled school (too bad I'm 25 now, eh?).  We have between 12 and 18 inches here in Payson. :p  Poor Matt has had to drive around for work today.  He managed to get his car stuck near the dumpster at his work, though it did finally get out.  Fortunately for me, I am working from home today (because of the snow, not like this just worked out that I was going to work from home anyway).  It's good, cuz I didn't want to un-bury my car, or drive anywhere.  My friend slid off the freeway this morning on his way to work, and then proceeded to get a ticket for failing to operate within one lane.  How lame is that?  Anyway, I'm technically still on the clock and should go back to editing, but here are some pictures of all of the snow around our condo.

 Note how much is on the carport roof - and that poor buried red car parked across the way.
 The parking sign has a 2D pope-style hat.
 Buried AC units next to building 5.
 More of building 5's AC units -  and their meters.
 Snow on roofs.
 Snow on the columns of the fence next to the road.
 Buried little tower.
 Snow on our (still) non-working streetlight.
Snow piled high on my Tigger antenna ornament.