Christmas vacation

Hello friends. As I'm sitting here, waiting for church, I thought I would do something productive. And what's more productive than a blog post?? I have no idea... :) We switched to 1:00 church this year, and although it's been nice to sleep in and be super lazy all morning, it kind of has me feeling guilty for "wasting" a Sabbath day. I definitely think that's something I'm going to have to work on throughout the year - try to do something before church starts so that I feel like it's not just another Saturday morning.

Anyway, let's do a post about our Christmas vacation. It was my family's turn for Christmas, so Andy and I flew out there for a week. We got in on Saturday afternoon and went to a movie with the fam. Bad idea seeing as how we had been up since 4am...so I fell asleep throughout the whole movie, basically. We went to the old ward on Sunday, except it's just not the same ward anymore since the split. It was a  really nice Christmas program. My dad sang in the choir and Rich and Amy narrated the program. They are soooo cute! I'm in love with them. :)

I'm super upset that I didn't take very many pictures. I'm just not used to taking pictures anymore, because at Tolton get-togethers...it's so STRANGE to have a camera present. Christmas Eve was nice, everyone came over to mom and dad's and we just laughed and ate, played games, watched the kids put on a play, had a talent show. I bet you're all wondering what my talent was?? I showed off my blanket that I'm knitting for baby Logan. But the best talent...Andy sang for all of us!! I told him I wasn't going to pressure him because he hates being the center of attention, but I think he was just won over with the spirit of Christmas. And yes, the minute he started singing...I cried! Haha! I think I would have cried even if I wasn't pregnant! We got some amazing presents from the family. Everybody is so crafty and creative!

My mom created all of these little scenes for each kid. Mine was a Nativity scene, which is perfect because I don't have a Nativity. And now I have an amazing hand-made one from my mama. Meg got fireplace and stocking scene, Dan and Judy got a Snowman family, Dave and Shell got a Gingerbread family, and Rich and Amy got an amazing Christmas tree. All of these were handmade our of sculpy clay/dough and she's been working on them only since October. I wish I had pictures of all of the other ones.

My Nativity scene

 The siblings "draw" names every year and Meg had Andy and I. She made this precious canvas for Logan's room. I'm going to do gray, yellow, black/white with giraffes and elephants. So this is absolutely perfect. It is sooo cute!

Love those giraffes!!

 Amy is apparently an amazing knitter and she knitted this super soft yellow blanket for baby Logan. Mom and Dad's house was pretty cold at times, so we put this on us and warmed right up.

So soft and cozy!

Dad made these little Learning bags for all of the grandkids. I saw him making them, but I didn't think he would have one for Logan yet, because he's not born and won't be "learning" for a little while. But he surprised us with his own little bag. So cute, he free-handed all of the pictures on the bag. 

Can't wait to read him these little books

After Christmas was over, pretty much all of the family got sick, except Andy and I so we borrowed Amy's car and tried to stay out of the house and away from the sickies. We got to hang out with our friends quite a bit on this trip, that was really nice. We did some shopping with Jan and Spencer, dinner with Brian and Derek, bowling with my girls. We were busy busy, but that's the way we like it. We got so much snow and I was in heaven! I was hoping we could go sledding with the kids, but we just never found a good time when everyone wasn't sick or busy. It was so good to spend Christmas with my family. It's always crazy and loud and so much food. But it's so much fun at the same time. I just think about next Christmas and our little baby will be here. Crazy!!