We went over to my parents' house for New Years Eve. We had the yummiest Clam Chowder ever!! My Mom makes the best Clam Chowder, in fact, it is the only kind I like. We had some rolls to go along with it and then we had ice cream floats and italian sodas (that my sister-in-law, Jolie made.) They were really good! Then we watched the Space Needle light up, as we counted down to 2011! By the look on my brother, Joe's, face, he was really, really excited for the New Year. (Joe's friend, Sebastian, was able to join us for the celebration.) PS- Aurora wasn't too keen on me taking her picture. In fact, she totally refused to have her picture taken and kept looking the other way. What a silly girl!! I finally snapped this one, when she wasn't expecting it.
Here are our Christmas lights for this year. Luckily, Grant puts them up each year, so I don't have to. We tried to keep them simple, since we were late getting them up and since we knew we would be having a baby right away. (We also had white lights and the tree lights in the bottom right window and little princess lights in the bottom left, but they decided not to work.) The girls liked how the pretty red bow sparkled in the sunlight. They also liked the way the frost sparkled! The whole ground outside was sparkly, at night! We were able to get a picture of one leaf inside, with the light on it. Not the same but you kinda get the idea.
We had Christmas with my family on New Years Day, at my parents' house. Here are a few pictures from our day...
1-2) Our cute little nephew, Cohen, who was born on Christmas Day, last year. He was so cute opening this little Elmo phone. He loved it!! :)
3-4) Okay, when Aurora doesn't want to take a picture, she refuses. No bribing this girl! But when she decides she wants to, she is a total ham!! She closed her eyes on purpose to smile really big for the picture! Cute!
5) Uncle Danny Claus (each year, a different Dad/Uncle/Grandpa plays Santa)- my girls thought Uncle Danny was much too skinny to be Santa. LOL!
6) My Dad with a couple of his presents.
7 & 9) Our girls opening a few of their presents.
8) All Grant asked for this year (and it isn't the first time) was Cabelas' gift cards. He was happy!
10) My Mom with a couple of her presents.
11) Riana bought this little Snoopy magic towel for her Grandma because she thought she would like it. (Grandma loves Snoopy/Charlie Brown and has a huge collection.) How thoughtful!
12-14) Me opening a few of my gifts-- the book "The Strong Willed Child" by James Dobson (I also received "Bringing Up Girls," by him, which I am really enjoying), some cute outfits for the baby, and also a picture of eating the yummy blueberry cheesecake. (We have a tradition to eat snack type foods, like 7 layer dip, little sandwiches on rolls- this year my Mom made the yummiest homemade rolls, vegetable tray, etc.)
15) Tierra was really excited to hold little baby Ruth, who was due on Christmas Eve, but came a day early.
16) Aurora also loved holding baby Ruth! She was quite interested in everything about her- her little fingers and toes, etc.
17) Here is Benjamin aka the Sheep. I am sad that I forgot to take pictures from the Nativity, especially since Liz wasn't there to take any. I am not sure that anyone took any. Major bummer! Anyway, Laurel was so excited to get to play the part of Mary. Unforunately, no one wanted to play Joseph but somehow we convinced Nathanael to play the part with his sister. Benjamin wanted to be baby Jesus so we told him he could be the baby Jesus with the wise men. Then he got really excited and said, "Okay, I be a sheep!" He proudly played the part of a sheep and then a donkey in another part. We had to have two donkeys (Uncle Danny) because Mary couldn't fit on the little donkey. When it was time to be baby Jesus later, Benjamin still wanted to be a donkey, so we just had the donkey sit on the manger. LOL! We had lots of volunteers to play angels-- my girls. Riana wanted to play the angel Gabriel (which she called Gabriella- silly girl!) Tierra and Karina also played angels. Aurora went back and forth between being an angel and being a shepherd. Sariah wanted to be an angel but decided to be a shepherd instead because she designed a beautiful costume for herself to wear. Seth was also a shepherd. And of course, Benjamin was a sheep. Stratton, Harrison, and Uncle Tommy were the wise men and Cohen starred as the cutest little King Herod ever! Uncle Joe played the part of Narrator and Grant videotaped it. (Kaatlin was still at home with her Mom and baby Ruth, who all came later.)
18) Chris and Mandy and their little baby Ruth- Baby Ruths are my favorite ;)
19) Holding baby Ruth
20) Aurora holding her doll- so sweet!
After the nativity, opening presents, and eating lots of yummy foods, we watched some videos of Joe's drama performance, where he played Superman in "Superman Saves Christmas" and of his choirs (the Man choir was really funny) and band concert. Then some of Chris's kids and my kids' clogging performances and one of our girls performing at our Ward Talent Show. They were fun to see! We had a good New Years Day. I feel blessed that we can live so close to my family.
