Christmas?

Merry Christmas!!! Ha ha. I know this is super late. It's safe to say that I wasn't too excited about Christmas this year without Gabriel. It was definitely such a difficult holiday season for me. At the same time, I knew my kids deserved to have a great time so I did my best to put on a smile and try to bring them the joy they needed. So, better late than never, here's what we did for Christmas!

Here's our family picture. We haven't had a family picture taken since Alexis was teeny and the plan was to get one as soon as Gabriel was born. Getting Ben into get a family picture is like pulling teeth...he hates the whole process. So he gave in to doing it but talked me into having our friend, Troy, take it. I think he did a wonderful job! P.S. Alexis does not do pictures well. :)
One of our favorite ways to kick off the Christmas season is to go to the Provo Tabernacle Live Nativity. We almost missed it this year because I wasn't really thinking about it. We just happened to be driving by and the kids noticed it was going on. We stopped the car and headed in to see the beautiful program and feel the spirit of the season. Just a few weeks later, this beautiful building burnt down. We're so thankful we got to spend some time there in it's last days since we have so many great memories there. It has always been one of my favorite buildings in the valley.
This year Skylar danced at the Gingerbread Festival instead of the Festival of the Trees. It was really low key, which was nice, and there were some pretty cool gingerbread houses/creations. Skylar did a great job dancing!
















We celebrated my grandma's 96th birthday! 96!!! We sure love that she's here to celebrate with! Love you Grandma!!
Of course the kids wanted to see the "real Santa" this year. We know where he is every year. He's only there for one day so the kids know he's real because Santa's much to busy to go to the mall like the rest of those fake Santas. They also love that he brings Mrs. Claus along.
We celebrated St. Nick's Day & St. Lucia's Day (minus pics). Skylar performed this year in the school choir and also played The Christmas Song beautifully for her piano recital.








Kade's preschool Christmas program was fantastic!








Kade also had his program for Joy school, performing the nativity at a care center and also for our family party.









We headed to the Riverwoods to see the beautiful lights and go on a horse drawn carriage.
















It's a tradition now to go to the Festival of Lights with the Tongs & Hoens and then head to one of their houses for hot chocolate & good fun. We forgot the camera but yay for camera phones!
On Christmas Eve we went to my parent's house & had a great night eating yummy food, visiting with family, and opening presents. The oldest girls did the St. Lucia thing and most of the grandkids had some kind of performance to share.









We did our traditional nativity that is always so nice. Skylar & Nick were shepherds, Kade was Joseph, and Alexis was Mary. She took it very seriously.









Here's a grandkid picture...sort of the last of the original grandkids (and it's not even all of them!). My nephew, Mark, on the left, got engaged just a few days after Christmas! How exciting...and how old does that make me feel!?!!
Christmas morning arrived with much excitement. Everyone got thoroughly spoiled.








Gabriel was a big part of our Christmas. Santa brought the beautiful picture, In His Constant Care, by Simon Dewey, that I was so wishing for. It's the first Christmas present I've ever cried about getting. I love it! The kids also got these adorable angel bears from a wonderful resource for families of baby loss, Angel Whispers, who sent us a care package with a bear for each of Gabriel's siblings. Now each of them have a reminder of their baby brother right by their beds.

This makes all the months of planning and shopping all worth it:Ben's family came over on Christmas day for yummy lunch & to open more presents!








Over the break, we had some good times playing our new Rock Band 3 with the awesome keytaur!

A few days after Christmas Ben took off half a day and we headed to the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum.

Then we headed over to beautiful Temple Square, where our friends, the Frisbys, met up with us....right as the batteries died on the camera.

On New Year's Eve, we went sledding with our friends, the Chadwicks, and froze our hineys off! It was freaking freezing!!

We spent the night bringing in the New Year with the Tongs & the Hoens. Good times!!All in all we had a good time, as tough as this year was. I feel so very blessed to have a knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ and that we always have this time of year to remember his birth and what it means to us all. This year it took on even more meaning to me and I felt more blessed by the birth of Christ than ever before. I know that because our Heavenly Father was willing to send his only begotten son to teach us, atone for us, and die for us, that we will get to be together with Gabriel again. Gaining a deeper appreciation of my Heavenly Father and my Savior this year was the greatest Christmas gift I could have ever received.