Christmas

Sheesh!!! I cannot believe how long it has been since I blogged, MEGA SLACKER. Not much has really happened, but the things that have I will try to throw down real quick.

Christmas.

I. Freaking. Love. Christmas.

Everything about. And I mean everything!! The two things I love the most about I think are 1. Family time and 2. just having a good excuse to spend time thinking about my Savior and all that He did for me. (Not that you need an excuse for that, but you know what I am saying.)

I actually enjoy Christmas Eve more than Christmas Day probably. We have a HUGE dinner. This year we only had about half the family there because the others were with their in-laws, but it was still good to have the siblings we did as well as Grandma Neiswender, plus...more food for us. I ate sooooooo much. And I didn't even get to everything that I wanted.

Dallin and Me at Dinner

EVERY kid does this instinctively. I think it's what olives

are really for, and Rylee excels at it

Christmas Eve dinner

We woke up early on Christmas morning and tapped in to our stashes of presents so we could be done before Travis called from Honduras. Kristi and I were the only kids there for Santa gifts which is slightly anti-climatic, but we had fun. I got an external hard drive (NEEDED this for my hoards of pictures) and then lots of nice exercise clothes to wear to my internship. Too bad they changed the dress code a week later and I can't wear any of them anymore, but that's beside the point. Then all the grandkids came over and we did more presents and had a blast as usual.

Rylee in her new princess dress

Melanie feels like she needs to dress up her

dog (if you can call it that), Zowie, for

any holiday

Dad with his new pop up book

My mom LOVES to buy him weird

things like this Santa shirt

And then...LITTLE BROTHER!!! He called and we got to talk to him for about an hour and a half. He sounded so great!! He honestly sounded so happy. They had a baptism that night, so we figured that was a good way for him to be spending Christmas since he couldn't be with us. It was so great to hear his voice and talk to him. It was especially great to hear his laugh. Geez I love that kid and I miss him like crazy. My little nephew Timmy was talking to Travis and just in the middle of the conversation says "Trav...are you comin' home?" It was so precious, such a sweet little boy. Trav just laughed it off and said not yet, he handled it much better than I did, that's for sure. But talking to him was easily the best part of my Christmas this year.

Kristi Josh and Dallin talking to Travis

Then we had our traditional breakfast, and I stuffed my face. Following breakfast, we had a break and then headed up to Heber to see Grandma and Grandpa Olpin.

Grandpa and Grandma Olpin

After Heber we headed over to Grandma Neiswender's house to see that side of the family. We don't see them very often so it was nice to hear what's new in everybody's life and how they are all doing.

Overall, Christmas day I just relaxed and kicked it with family all day long. It was so nice, I am lucky to have so many great people in my life to share this beautiful holiday with!

I caught mommy kissing Santa Clause!!