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| Mom and her restored doll |
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| my wonderful brothers and sisters... |
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and spouses together again after many years.
It made my Mom so happy to be the hostess in her home! |
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| Thomasclaus |
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This year for Christmas eve dinner I cooked a prime rib
(that turned out fabulous) and made an English triffle for dessert. |
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| We enjoyed spending Christmas eve with these little ones |
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| All ready for dinner |
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| Can these two really be the parents of four little children? |
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| We LOVE our grandchildren so much! |
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Ellie giving Tommy a kiss
Another great Christmas has come and gone. I'm always amazed at how excited I am for it to come and at the end of the month, how excited I am for it to go. In many ways, it's exhausting (in a good way!) I love to put up my decorations and get ready for the holiday and I also love to take it all down and get back to normal. This year, all of our children and their families spent some time with us at home. For two full weeks, it was nice to have them come and go in waves and we only overlapped one full day on New Year's eve with everyone. Rick and I had a two and a half week break from work and we managed to fill every day with something fun to do with our kids and grand kids. We started out enjoying a visit to Logan with my brothers and sisters as my Mom hosted a wonderful Christmas dinner and program. It was great to be together and enjoy one anothers company since we don't get together very often. Carol and Taylor hosted a fun party the night before and Lee and Mike were good enough to take us in for the night at their home complete with a nice sit in their outdoor hot tub.
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Dave, Courtney and Charlie arrived on the 22 of December for an overnight-er and then came back for a week from the 25th through January 1st. It was so wonderful to get to know Charlie even better and to bond with that darling little boy. He calls me Ba and Rick Bampa. He melted our hearts and we loved playing with him.
Jordan and Jake and girls, along with new little Thomas came to town on December 23 and stayed til Christmas day and then again from the 29 through the 2 of January. They spent time with us and with Jake's family and it was lovely to have them with us for Christmas eve and Christmas morning and again for the New Year. Baby Thomas was given a name and a blessing while they were here and it was fun to get together with Jake's family and to have Grandma Pat and Robyn, Bob and Romney in town to attend as well. Lauren, Ellie and Ada did a great job performing at the Christmas eve program and they are budding pianists, vocalists and Chinese speakers. Santa was good to these little girls! Ellie got a karaoke machine and we laughed ourselves sick taking turns singing various renditions of our favorite songs. Let's just say that "The Voice" won't be calling on any of us anytime soon.
Claire and Rich pulled in with their little family on the 28th and they got to stay for a week, leaving to head home on January 4. We loved having some one-on-one time with Lizzie and Will and enjoying the delightful things they say and do. Claire got us tickets to see the BYU exhibition of
Sacred Gifts and it was a wonder to behold, especially at this time of year. I recommend it to everyone!
Andy and Chelsea spent most of their time this year with Chelsea's family, but they came back to town in time for a group family photo and our New Year's eve party complete with the PRESENT GAME. Our neighbors lit off some HUGE fireworks this year and it just added to our revelry welcoming in the new year.
We also enjoyed lots of good food, Grandma Pat treating us all to Mimi's for breakfast, bowling, sledding, playing the Game of Things, movies, games, the BYU bowl game (which was forgettable), Christmas dinner at Grandma Pat's with all Rick's family, attending the temple, Wayne's wedding, our annual party with the Philipp family and just being together and enjoying one another. It was a memorable holiday season and Rick and I felt so blessed to celebrate the birth of our Savior with our dear ones.
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| Lauren wowing us with her piano skills |
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| Ellie sang to us and counted to 100...in Chinese! |
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| Santa brought Lauren a typewriter! |
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Claire, Rich, Dave and Courtney got this
new addition for Rick for his Cougar room. |
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| Which one is Santa Claus?? |
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| New dresses for all the girls from Grandma. So cute! |
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| Mother and daughter and son at Thomas' blessing |
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| Four generations! |
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| I loved my time with little Charlie man. |
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| Sledding down the hill with grandpa and uncle Jake. So fun! |
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| The whole family on blessing day |
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| Proud dad, grandpa and uncles |
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The best part of the holiday...getting to have
all seven of our grandchildren together! |
2 comments:
What a great Christmas season you had- and so fun to spend that much time with everyone. Mike can not imagine in a million years how it would be to be able to take 2 and a half weeks off work- at any time of the year, let alone the end of December, so I hope Rick knows how fortunate he is. It was fun to see all your wonderful pictures. You have such an awesome family.
Just for correction purposes - I didn't have two and one-half weeks off from work. I did go in and do some limited things some of the days, but it was very nice to have time off and very fun to be with the family. We are fortunate to have the family we do, and thanks, Vonnie, for recapitulating the activities and for getting the pictures in order.
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