Christmas

 Christmas was awesome

 lots of smiles

laughter

jamas

food

games

movies

and

relaxing.

I wish I could figure out how to make time stand still.

Christmas Eve

I think this was one of my favorite Christmas Eve's.

We had a great crowd.

 We ate way to much food, of course.
Played games.

 Had a little food fight with the missionaries

 Listened to Mike read the Cajun Night Before Christmas

 Sang Christmas carols while James played the harmonica

 Read Luke 2

And went Christmas caroling.

Last year our neighbors, Carly who sang in church, and their family came and caroled to our house. We loved it. We hadn't ever been caroled before. At church a few people came to them and thanked them for caroling and asked if they'd be going again this year. They said they would go if we joined them.

So we did!

I haven't ever caroled before
but with this big of a crowd how could it not be fun?

 

 With this big of a crowd we were loud! 

The neighbors heard us coming and were ready for us.

Some even with treats. :)

 After the crowd went home for the evening, we opened our homemade gifts that we made for each other.

This is also becoming one of my favorite traditions.

 

Josh made a sign for Luke that says Choose the Right in chinese  and attached a quote that he likes,

 

Dad made a coupon book for Josh that included a date of choice, xbox time with him, an ice cream Mcflurry, dad will do one job for him around the house etc.
The cutest thing was how excited Josh was about it.

 I made bookshelves for Ben's room

 Luke made these way cool tie tacks for Luke. 

I'll post better pictures of the tie tacks later but they are cool.
He made 4 of them, one of the Boston temple, an Ohio State one, and 2 Red Sox ones a B and red sox all hand drawn by him.

 Not pictured, a sign (not completely finished) for me by Ben and frozen chocolate chip cookie dough for Jean.

Finally,

Kids in bed.

Let the wrapping begin.

Movies, talking and laughing

4am finally done.

6am let the day begin.

Merry Christmas!

Family time

 Monday evening we enjoyed dinner and seeing the lights in Boston.

The Christmas tree is the tallest in New England and I think the tallest in the country but don't quote me on that.

It's 85 feet tall and minus the light malfunction that seemed to be having that night was an awesome sight to see.

Every half hour Christmas songs were played and the lights in the entire area would blink to the beat of the music.

 It was cold and was steadily drizzling so seeing the lights was a quickie.

 Nice look Ben
Funny thing he didn't even know what he was posing for until the picture was taken.

 

Neighbors

The last few days before Christmas were crazy busy.

I tried so hard to get stuff done ahead of time.

I did get stuff done, but the funny thing is that I filled that extra time with more stuff!

I don't think that's how it's supposed to work but that's how it happened.

Crazy busy.

But with all good things.

I have a 2nd calling at church and am in charge of the music for Sacrament meetings.

Which means I put together the musical numbers for the Christmas program.

I invited my 14 year old neighbor Carly to sing one of the numbers.

Her entire family came to see her sing.
The meeting was beautiful.

There were a handful of speakers that were asked to share their thoughts about the Savior and 5 musical numbers.

The spirit was there and was felt by many including my neighbors.

Carly's family snapped a shot of her singing Silent Night.

She sang while some other ward members played a mini harp, flute, cello, piano, organ, guitar, and a triangle with the congregation joining in on the 3rd verse.

It was so beautiful.

It was such a good meeting and a very positive experience for my neighbors.

 My one regret is that I didn't invite more of my neighbors. When they had heard she had sung, they were disappointed that they were not invited to come and see her sing.

That night we had a Christmas party for our neighbors.
We planned the party on the Friday before, without a lot of time on Saturday to get ready for it  Sunday was a little crazy getting ready for it but it felt like the right thing to do.

It was a great night. 

We have such great neighbors.

Why shouldn't we do more to get to know them better?

There is no reason why we shouldn't.

I feel a new goal coming on. :)

Ward party

 Remember these awesome Elders who took a few hours out of their day to hang these lights?
Most of these decorations you see in the picture, were the other wards, who were having their party that evening. They were going to leave up the lights, tables, chairs, and stage so we just needed to come in and put on table clothes and a few extra things the next day for our party.
Because of weather the party was postponed to the following week, church was cancelled and because of more weather so were all activities during the week.

So we were shocked when we showed up at the church an hour before the activity was supposed to start to see that somebody had come in and taken down EVERYTHING including the lights!

We had 1 hour to put together what took us a few hours to do just a week ago. I called the missionaries thankfully they dropped everything and ran to the church. They immediately started working on hanging the lights.

We worked hard and fast, but got it done without any seconds to spare.
Talk about crazy

 The activity was a night in Bethlehem. I was not in charge of the activity, the young women were just in charge of decorating. The people in charge did a great job. We dressed in period to time clothing, ate period to the time food and acted out the nativity.

Ben was Joseph and Luke and Josh were shepherds.
 It was a beautiful evening and the spirit was felt.

 I'm so glad they could have this opportunity

There was also a place where we could have our picture taken in front of a green screen and this background was later put in.

Love it.

Great night