CHRISTMAS EVENING 2011

 You know what?  Why not just start with the day as well, it is by the way the one "EVE" that is celebrated all DAY long.  So we are back up in South Jordan for our LAST Christmas away from home (yes, we say that every year, but we mean it this time....next year, its a lonely, yet much anticipated Christmas with no traveling :).  I'll keep you updated. We spent the day very lazy.  In the early afternoon we went and walked around the Oquirrh Mountain temple with the kids and the lake at Daybreak.  We fed the ducks and climbed over the bridge.  It was cold but nice, except for one thing, which I will try not to bring up a lot but it became a very memorable part of the whole weekend.....I WAS SICK!  SO SO SO SICK!  I didn't know then, but later became very aware that I had the beginning signs of a very BAD stomach flu.
  But not to distract from the occasion.  We finally got to my sisters house around 4 and the kids started making their cookies for Santa.  We ate dinner and rushed through our nativity act, because Jim and Tallie wanted us to go to Jim's work and talk to Santa over the air plane radio things.  (I guess it would make sense to remind my readers that Jim works as an air traffic controller and on Christmas Eve you can go and see where Santa's sleigh is at that time in the US on this big Air Traffic Controller screen).  So we rushed to make it to our allotted time slot and the kids enjoyed it.  But by this time, I know I am minutes away from losing it.  But I try to hold it together as best I can.  It was fun seeing Jim show off his work and I was glad we went if not to do anything but support him.   It was a quick trip downtown but we finally get back to my sister's around 8 and do the whole cousin present exchange.  It was fun and the kids loved every minute of FINALLY being able to open a present.
  (Side note) This year in lieu of doing Christmas for another family like we usually do instead of getting our brother/sister gifts, we decided to go to my brother Brett's apartment, stock his cupboards with tons of food and clean his apartment really well.  It was so fun!  And he was SO appreciative.  He's been really sick lately and has surgery scheduled to get his gallbladder out next week so it was fun helping him out. 
  Back to Christmas Eve.  We hadn't finished opening pajamas long before the amount of people in the house began to rise the temperature significantly and I knew I had to go.  We made it back to Cordelle's parents house just in time.  However needless to say the rest of my Christmas Eve and the early morning of my Christmas morning was spent puking my brains out (vivid eh?).  So I apologize  if my perception of Christmas is a bit off.  Thank goodness I have an amazing husband and mother/father in laws that helped take care of everything so I could pretty much spend the day zonked out in bed.  MERRY CHRISTMAS!

  And now an overload of pictures that unless you're family you probably will get bored with.  :)

 Check out this stable!!  My sister does NOT mess around!  Seth this year got to be Joseph and little Jaq once again was the darn cutest sheep.

The shepherds came...

And the three wise men

 Angels sang... (Mom, Britlyn, Ensci, the one in the middle is my little brother Mark's girlfriend from Hungary who was here visiting. Then me, and Krista. Tallie was, lets say, in a very impatient, bad mood so she opted not to dress up)

All of us, except for Brett who insisted on just taking pictures (bah humbug) with my Dad.