Saturday, December 27, 2008

Christmas

We are so lucky to have two wonderful families!! Roger's parents came over (to my parents) for a little while on Christmas Eve to give us gifts and the kids enjoyed seeing them. Ethan loved opening presents and that night is when we learned he said, "cool" when he opens presents. It was so dang cute!! He continued all day on Christmas as well with the, "cool" thing. They got Ethan a little robot which he just loves and they got each of the kids an outfit and they look so adorable in them!! We wished they could've stayed for dinner but since the weather has been bad and they live in Quincy so they wanted to make it back before it got too late amd dark and the roads would've been even more slick. Mom made an awesome Prime Rib dinner for Christmas Eve and Grandma and Poppy joined us all as well. We all got to open our Christmas Pajamas from Mom and Dad. The kids' were so cute. Ali looked adorable in the night gown. We didn't get any pictures on Christmas Eve but my lovely sister-in-law, Brandi, got some and you can see those here. They just got a blog!!! YAY! Mom did a good job getting pictures of Christmas day...we had all just woke up though so please don't criticize us for our droopy eyes because we went to bed at 2 am. We all had fun staying up and talking. Our family..before Santa came...

Then Santa came and left a Lightning McQueen Walking Talking Car for Ethan and a Cabbage Patch Kid for Aliana. He came in and out so fast that this was the only picture we could get!! However, we have a clear video of his quick trip in and out. Can you say hilarious? :) (THANKS DAD) As soon as he left the room Ethan yelled, "CAR!" and ran over and picked it up!! Too cute!
It's a little Mexican cabbage patch kid! Her hair even glows in the dark!

Ethan loved his car and played with it all day. He doesn't really like it to go on the floor though. He'd much rather just hold it.


She loves her baby!

Again with his car. Ethan and Aliana played with the gifts from Santa for a while before we all started opening presents.

Nana and Grandpa got this blanket and frog for Ali.

They also got these car slippers for Ethan

Aliana for this book with bear set.

Kaitlin and Karissa. Karissa flew in from New Mexico Tuesday night and Roger picked her from the airport in Spokane after he got off work and drove straight to Moses. We are so happy to have her here for the holidays but we know the rest of her family misses her a lot.

Ethan got a bear book too.

I'd like to call this the many faces of Ali, because we got tons of cute faces that she makes!



We had biscuits and gravy for breakfast and finally Ben called. We had been waiting for him all morning, but they arrived to the church late so they didn't call when we had expected. We were just relieved to hear him and know that he was safe. He told us some scary stories of the area he's in, but he's been very blessed to be so safe. They haven't been robbed yet and most people have been robbed multiple times by now. He has a little bit of an accent which is cute. I guess I thought that since he's only been out six months he would probably still sound like a white boy but he's sounding latino!! He spoke beautiful spanish...well Rob says he sings but that's how they speak in Argentina. We all got stuff together to go out to Grandma's for our big family dinner and headed that way. We had an amazing dinner around 4:30 and then decided to pick up stuff and sing some Christmas songs as a family. It was wonderful to be around everyone with smiles on their faces as we sang together before we opened gifts!


The Newlyweds

The Beautiful Grandparents who have been married for 51 glorious years! We are all so grateful that they have done so much for all of our families by converting to the church when my father was only 5 years old. Their decision has impacted all of our lives and we can never express enough gratitude towards them.

Aliana loves to sing...can't you tell?


Alyssa (Andrew and Lori's oldest)

Kaitlin and Alyssa

Reece (Dan and Angie's middle child)


Dan and Angie

Chris

Viki and Ali get along really well. I think it's because Viki was right outside the delivery room when I had Aliana.

She helped Aliana open up her cabbage patch kid that Grandma Waites got her. This one was white. Nana said that's good that she has both! LOL

I love this little munchkin...just wish he wasn't so shy of the camera now..we followed him everywhere and he just wouldn't look at the camera! Grandma and Poppy got him this little police car.

Webb playing with Muffin.

Viki made Ethan and Ali sweater and hat sets. We couldn't get Ethan to put his on but Ali was really cooperative. She looks so cozy!

Kissing her baby! I caught her doing it before and I wanted to get a picture of it!

Roger got some leather gloves from Grandma and Poppy and I got an awesome scrapbooking kit from Costco...couldn't have asked for a better gift!

Aliana and her dolly again.

Roger was so worn out! I love that he always looks so peaceful while he's sleeping.

Nana and Aliana.

One of Ali's favorite things to do is to touch foreheads together. It's so dang cute!!!

After we opened presents we all sat around and talked with each other. It's always nice to catch up on what other families are doing since we don't do family dinners every Sunday anymore. Roger had been talking about going to see Valkyrie so my parents took the kids home and put them to bed for us while Roger, Kaitlin, Karissa, Chris, Dan, Conner, Reece, Seth, Antonio, and I went to the late movie. It was pretty good. I definitely thought it was a history movie so it wasn't as intense as I thought it might be. All in all our Christmas turned out amazing...we got lots of presents including: Dance Dance Revolution 3 (man I didn't know stepping forward, right, left, and back could be so dang difficult if you don't watch closely), a Blu-Ray players with Blu-Ray movies Ironman, Mamma Mia, and I am Legend, a pizza stone and paddle, clothes, shoes, and more. I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas as well...It was so fun to be with the family and enjoy love from each other. What a wonderful holiday for the family.

We are so grateful for Christ and all that he has done for us. His birth truly was a wonderful gift in itself. It amazes me how fast some of us can forget about the true meaning on Christmas. We always need to remember him and keep him in our hearts.

5 comments:

Aly said...

That sounds like such a great Christmas! We got your card in the mail today. It is so cute. YOu guys look great. We miss being close to family, so you guys are so lucky!

Anonymous said...

What adorable children, young and old. could have left the picture of the old folks out, that would have pleased me. Wonderful Christmas, just having everyone here made it perfect.

Walkers said...

Ash- It looks like you guys had a great Christmas! Ethn and Ali are getting so BIG! I love the pajamas- we do that too!

Tyler - Danielle - Emree said...

I love all the pictures! It looks like you had an amazing Christmas and everyone was pretty much there. We just got your Christmas card and it couldn't be any cuter. Merry Christmas!

Stephanie Kay Moore said...

Love the pictures! Looks like you guys had so much fun!