Christmas Eve

Christmas is full of traditions, including Christmas Eve! This year I gave the kids a christmas mug, and some Christmas books. Plus they got to open one present from under the tree. We've changed our tradition of opening on gift on Christmas Eve night, to opening in the day after breakfast. That way the kids can play with that gift, and we don't have it competing with going to bed at night. It was a lot of fun. The kids were so excited.

Then we went to G-ma and G-pa Mortensen's, for some food and fun.

We always do a manger scene. The kids are still pretty little, and it can be rather humorous, but that is all part of the fun.

Then we go to G-ma and G-pa Jardine's. They let the kids open one present that night too.

Mommy and Brigham

Cute family picture.

Linda pulls out the Bells and Chimes, and we all sing Christmas songs after Grandpa has read the Christmas story from the bible.

Chad and his girls, Niamh and Aoife.

The week before Christmas

You know I took WAY more pictures than this. Many of each event, in fact. But for the sake of time, I just tried to pick some of the very best, to illustrate what we did the week before Christmas. It was a lot of fun. Full of games, family, food and presents! We are truly blessed.

My mom has a teddy bear for each person in the family. As our families grow, she just adds bears. It is so fun. I just have a picture here of my "bear family", but she has bears for everyone. So cute. I love it.
We participated in our first Christmas pagent this year. A woman in my ward put this on. It turned out really nice. And we recieved tons of praise for our little sheep (Brigham).

Eli's preschool program was fun and cute as always!

I got to help in Breanne's kindergarten class. They made gingerbread houses, and enjoyed eating candy. It was so fun to be there.

Joshua's class Christmas sing.

I also got to help in Joshua's Class Christmas party. They made rice crispy presents instead of houses. I liked it a lot. It made for a lot less mess. I was really glad I got to go to both kids events. The kids always love it when mom is there. And mom loves to be there.

We are kinda making it a tradition to get together with Grandma and make gingerbread houses. They always turn out so cute, and it is fun to have all that colorful candy on the table....but not for long. YUM!

The Cousin's Party, at Melissa's house. This is also becoming a tradition. To get together for a Christmas party with our cousins and G-ma, Gpa Mortensen. We play games, decorate cookies, and make an ornament. Loads of fun.

We had Melissa and Jake and their family over to open presents and have pizza.

Here's Jared modeling his new shirt from Melissa and Jake.

The kids had a blast messing around with these tubes after we were done opening presents. Melissa and I had a good laugh too.

Then we got a special surprise visit from Jared's cousing Nicole and her family. They live in Wisconsin and were on road trip on their way to Seatle for Christmas with family there. But they decided to go out of their way a bit and come down to Utah to pay us a visit along with some church history sites in Salt Lake. It was so fun. They could only stay for 3 hours, but it was so worth it. They have kids pretty much the exact age of mine. We wish we lived closer, we would always hang out. Breanne especially loves their Celeste.

Nicole and their baby Jarom.

The babies, socializing while being held. Brigham just loved Jarom. They were smiling and laughing for quite some time.

We threw together some presents for them, and then had to say good bye. What a treat it was to get a visit. It is so seldom that we see each other because we live so far apart.

This is called, taveling in style!!! What a great way to make a road trip with 5 little kids. This was the rig they rented to make the trip.

The next day, we went to Cheryl and Eric's to exchange gifts. The kids always love going to their house. And we had yummy hot chocolate, and treats.

Here we are at Brent's apartment to give him his gift, and see his new place.

And Chad and Janice came over for presents and some games.

Aiofe.

And finally, we went to Grandpa Harvey's for the annual Mortensen Family Christmas party. We always have pizza and White Elephant gifts. We do a seperate round for the kids.

Brent and Kirstie, and their cute dog Nikko.

My Hot hubby!!!

I took A TON more pics of this, but here are some that try to show that EVERYBODY was there. Shawna made a neat comment about how happy Grandma Mortensen was that her posterity was all gathered in that room, and that she was there that night. I believe she was too. It was a great night.

I love that we kindof "spread Christmas out." It makes it so fun for the kids, and really builds memories.

"My Punch Card."

After delivering my fifth baby, my doctor said, "Oh, you forgot your punch card. Don't you know the 10th one's free?" So I took this picture of all five of the kids (He's delivered all of them by the way) and made a punch card, with the 1-5 punched out, and gave it to him. He got a good laugh from it, and I told him that I was probably the wrong person to joke like that with. But he said, "Ya know if I ever do deliver someones tenth baby, I wont charge them." (I really doubt that we will be taking him up on that offer, but ya never know!)

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Yee!!! Haa!!!

"Your love puts me on the top of the world!!!"

Merry Christmas!

Skiing with a friend.

Decorating for Christmas!

The kids love to decorate the Christmas tree every year. Sometime's I think it would be nice to have some perfect tree that looked just how I wanted it too, decorated with nice expensive ornaments, but I think this little tree...that is covered in Love, is much better.

Brigham's baby blessing!