Christmas 2009

We had a wonderful Christmas! We are so lucky to have both of our families living so close to each other so that we can spend holidays with both of them! It is so nice to not have to choose one family to do everything with or to have to switch off every other year! We love going back and forth and getting the best of both worlds :) There is never a dull moment on holidays!

We had a really great time this year full of family, friends and food! :)

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve night with the Peterson family. We had a wonderful dinner (as always!) cooked by my amazing mother in law, and carried on our usual tradition of reading the Christmas story from the scriptures and and singing Christmas songs by a fire in the backyard.

This year, we had all the kids (and some of the adults) dress up and "act out" their parts in the story. Madelyn got to be an angel, but unfortunately she was not acting like an angel that night (in fact, she was in a pretty bad mood most of the night!) so this is the best picture she would let me get of her in her dress!

sitting around the fire with her cousin Tyler

opening presents

Because we were all there together that night, we opened up all of our presents a little early! It was so much fun and as usual, we were totally spoiled! The first present that Madelyn opened was a set of a cradle, high chair, and stroller with a baby doll. Let's just say that she LOVED it, and actually didn't even open one more present the whole night! She walked around the house with it, and wouldn't come back into the living room to open more!

In her Christmas PJ's before bed

I feel weird calling it a "tradition" considering that we've only had a child for two Christmases now, but I always get Mady Christmas PJ's and have her open them on Christmas Eve, and I plan to always do that with my kids... so I can call it a tradition, right?

Christmas Morning

We woke up early on Christmas morning, and had our own little Christmas with just our family... which consisted of like 3 presents... ha ha! Then we were off to breakfast with my dad's side of the family.

The Christmas loot!

her tired smile! We had to wake her up to get out the door on time.

testing out the chair that Santa brought her

As you can see, she still has the stroller with her. She pretty much hasn't let go of it since she opened it! When she first opened her eyes on Christmas morning, the first word out of her mouth was "stroller?!"

On the left side of the picture is the Christmas present that Ian and I got for each other this year! We bought a new video camera and have been loving having a good camera to take videos of our cute girl! Besides, the camera, we just got each other a couple little things like dvds....

After breakfast with my dad's family, it was back to my parents for opening more presents and awaiting a call from my little brother Justin, who is serving a mission in Chile right now. It was so fun to talk to him! He will be home in about 5 weeks! We can't wait!

Gunner, Merrick and Madelyn waiting to open presents!

so excited!

My mom bought Mady a whole set of princess shoes!

She was in HEAVEN! She absolutely loves them and wants a pair on her feet at all times! She has been wearing them non-stop!

I know this is a terrible picture, and you can't even see everything in it, but it's the only one I got of the gifts my parents got Ian and I. Ian got a new grill (wooh-hooh!... I'm excited) and I got a new glider for the baby's room! I am way excited to have a comfy chair to sit in, as opposed to the wooden rocking chair I've had so far!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!