December 23rd

December 23rd was spent at my Mom's house. All the boys and their wives came and stayed the night. The boys finished putting all of the furniture back (see previous post) and then we got to put up all of Mom's Christmas decorations just in time for Christmas. The boys were assigned the tree.

The girls put up ornaments, lights, and stockings. I love having sister-n-laws!

*Missed you Meg and Mad!

Tyler was pretty intense about the lights on the tree. :) He wanted them to go very deep. It turned out beautiful!

While the girl's finished decorating, the boys played Smash Brothers. Apparently it's a tradition.

Sarah hung up all of the 14 stockings (Conan has one too.)

After decorating was game time. Settlers of course. This is about midnight.

Ben got done about 2:00 am with all of the games and I went to bed long before that. Troy woke up around 1:00 am and so I just put him next to me. I guess he liked knowing I was next to him. We have other pictures with his hand on my face.

The next morning we had a huge breakfast that Devin and Sarah were in charge of. It was amazing. Then we went to the church to play basketball, like we do every year. Sarah was a genius and found the nursery for Troy. We brought in two toys and he was occupied for quite a while. The boys played elimination or speed and a very competitive game of 21. Sarah and I played speed a little bit but I was pretty tired after one game. Not to mention my hips felt like they were splitting open when I ran just a little.

We all went home after basketball to split off into our other activities. We came back on Christmas to exchange gifts and have a Christmas devotional together. I didn't get any pictures of it but it was the best part of our family Christmas. My family is so wonderful.

I will post about Christmas with Ben's family soon. I'm still figuring out my new camera that Ben got me!! A total surprise!!!!