Christmas Day

I just thought I would throw in a few more pictures from Christmas Day.  It was really crazy and hectic but I love having my family around.  Shauna and Brad were even able to make it here in time for dinner.  That was a treat.  I certainly haven't seen much of her though.  Anyway, here are some more pictures. 

Kelli and Ashley, don’t they look excited.  I think Christmas morning looses something when you get older. 

Crystal feeding the munchkins dessert, Ashley playing our new catch phrase game, Crystal and bailey.  Below Bailey in those lovely 3d glasses.  Isn’t she cute, Kelli and Shad, Kelli, one of the twins and Shad. 

k

Our Christmas tree and our outside decorations. 

Christmas Eve at Grandma's

One of the strongest traditions we have is Christmas Eve at my Mom's (Grandma Flake). We have Mexican Food, lots and lots of it.  We have a program, with some talent from those that want to participate and then the Nativity done by the kids.  (We have quite a collection of costumes that have been collected over the years.)  The nativity is probably my favorite part.  I love watching the little kids. Kent was saying this year that we should cherish what time we have left being able to do this as a family.  At some point the family will be too big to do this all together, that will be so sad.  This has been a part of my kids life all of their lives.   Below are some pics.  I didn't take time to edit any of them.  If I did I knew I would never get them posted.  Check out the Halbison Photo Spot for more Christmas Eve Pictures.

                     

Regan is Mary                                        Cameron the wiseman                      

Kirk and Lori’s Denton                       Kristen and Carl’s Chad

    

Julie, Lacey and Bailey (what sweet angels)  Brittany, the littlest angel

Connor was Joseph and he wasn’t loving it!

Porter, Tate, Chad and Jerom our little shepherds

Wisemen, Cameron and Collin

So many memories!!!! Love Christmas!

Bailey, Grace, Sadie, Regan, Natalie, Sierra, Julie, Lacey

Ashley, Sierra, Denton, Porter, Connor, Collin and Chad

 

Family Party

Every Christmas we have a Family Party with all my siblings and my parents. We all look so forward to it and always have so much fun. We all were extremely disappointed when we found out Reed and Amy weren't going to be able to make it this year. Every year they come all the way from Snowflake just for the party and drive back the same night. We all feel like Reed is the life of the party. But...............we found out that there are several people in our family that can be the life of the party. It was a lot of fun! Mom and Dad are always such great sports. We always have lots of good food. We have a white elephant gift exchange that is usually the highight of the evening. We have so much fun together I am not sure why we don't get together more often. I love how everybody can just feed off each other and it keeps us laughing the whole night. We actually partied longer without Reed there. The party usually breaks up around 10:00 when Reed and Amy leave to go home but we partied until about 11:30. We did still miss Reed and Amy a lot. We miss Loretta and Patrick too but they haven't come for a while. I wish they would they would have so much fun. Below are a few pictures.

         

  Kirk and Lori                                                  Kristen and Carl

                           

                                                                 Mom and Dad                                       

LaDawn and David                                                  Kent and Lori

                   

Here we were trying to act like it was a boring party and we sent the picture to Reed and Amy.  We didn’t do to well at acting bored.                                        

FHPE Christmas Program

I just have to share the about the Christmas Program we had the other night for enrichment. It was an idea that I had when we were in the Western Skies Ward. It turned out extremely nice. It was a progressive program.

We started out at Karla Gaylord's house where we had Randa Gaylord do a reading as Mary. Then Sara Gardner sang a song by Sally DeFord "When Mary Sang Her Lullabye" . It was beautiful and then we gave them the Mary piece of the nativity they were getting for the evening.

We then moved to Sonnet Boulton's home where we had a real treat and Joe Tenney (a friend we knew in the Western Skies ward and a member of the group "Three 2 U") did a reading about Joseph and sang another song by Sally DeFord "Guard Him Joseph". They received the Joseph piece of the Nativity.

We then went to a sister in our ward that is dying of cancer and sang "Silent Night". She was beautiful and looked so at peace. It was very emotional.

We went on to Randa Gaylord's home and had a reading about "The Star, My Heart and The Savior". We handed out the Star and then on to my house for the last part of the program. Where we had Becky Potter speak and then saw the Nativity video to the song "A Breath of Heaven" by Amy Grant. We then had dessert. The evening was wonderfully successful. We had about 30 sisters attend. I think they all felt the spirit that was there.We painted 55 nativity sets. Thanks so much to my friends Cindy Johnson and Karolyn Wolfington we were able to get them done. I don't think I would have been able to get them done without them. I know over the years this has become one of my favorite little sets. If anyone would like a script of what we used I would be glad to get it to you. I got a lot of it off of the Sally DeFord website and the Star reading was from the New Era, December 2008.

Temple Lights

One thing we do every year as a family is get together and go see the Temple lights.  We usually go out to eat first - but last year kind of burned us out on going out to eat.  Serrano's food was so bad and the service was worse.

Any way we had pizza (homemade) at the house and then went to the Temple.  It is pretty much the same every year but it is a tradition the kids don't want to give up.  So here are some of the pictures from the Temple.  Those that were there were, Brian and Jen, Heather and Dustin,

                 

Cute little twinners!!!!

                         

Ashley, Sadie, Porter, Connor, Kelli, Collin, Cameron, Regan and Bailey

                       

Ashley and Collin                                                 Crystal

             

        Ashley Cameron and Collin                    Heather and Kelli (one of he twins)

           

Ashley, Heather, Kelli and Crystal                         Brian and Jen

THE WHOLE GANG!!!!! The ones that went that night anyway.