a very merry CHRISTMAS!

We've had a fun and busy week. My mom got the okay from her doctors to head south, so my folks drove to our home last Saturday. My brother Mark and his family also arrived on Saturday, and my sister Mindy was here with her daughter Samantha that night too (they were driving home to Texas from here). My brother Todd and his family arrived on Monday and we all had a great week together.

My mom spent most of one day at the hospital (ER) which was a bummer, but luckily they got her taken care of and got her the infusion she needed without admitting her. She has felt pretty well though and we are grateful for that.

I didn't really take any photos until the morning everyone left, but the cousins had a great time playing together and we were all able to enjoy the nice weather and play outside and do some hiking (My 12-year-old nephew is working on his 'hiking' merit badge and did two ten-milers that I joined him for most of).

The adults (plus my cousin Bob) were all able to go to the Mesa temple one day to do family sealings for some ancestors on my father's side. It was a very special experience. Here are a couple of photos we took outside as we were leaving:

(Back row: Mark, Grandpa Dunning, Rob and Bob.
Front row: Katherine, me, Grandma Dunning, Todd and Tracey.)

A photo of the kids while we waiting for everyone to gather: Back row: Eliza (Todd's), Rylan (Mark's), and Burke
Middle row: Adler (Todd's), Liv, McKaylynn (Mark's, Tosh, and Taylor (Mark's)
Front row: Tyra (Todd's), Cami (Mark's), Brock (Todd's), and Hewitt

My brothers both left on Friday to get home before Christmas. Boy, it sure seemed quiet without all the cousins here. I also laughed that cooking a turkey dinner on Christmas Eve for just the eight of us seemed pretty easy after cooking for a party of 20 all week! :)

After turkey, stuffing, etc. on Saturday night, we acted out the nativity (Grandpa was the narrator and Grandma was our audience):

Liv was very excited to be the angel and did not want to take the costume off. She was slightly tired by the end of the night, can you tell?
I really like having Christmas fall on Sunday. The last time that happened, Burke was three and Hewitt was one. Since we had church at 1:00 today, we let the kids eat new sugar cereal for breakfast, then we showered and got dressed for church, opened presents and then had a big late brunch of waffles, sausage, peaches, etc. before leaving for church.

Here is the gang all ready to open gifts:

I got a lot of pictures today, but here are some of my favorites:

For family home evening a couple of weeks ago we took each of the kids shopping to pick out presents for their siblings. The older boys willingly used their own money to buy their presents, and all of the kids wrapped their own gifts too.

Burke was really excited when he opened his gift from Liv-- a big bag of rubber bands! Great choice, Liv (with a little help from Rob).

One of Liv's favorite gifts was a tiara and wand that Hewitt picked out and bought for her. When the wand broke this afternoon (my dad glued it back together), Hewitt said, "Well, it's good that the CTR-uh didn't break!" Ha! We laughed so hard that he thought that 'tiara' was 'CTRa'. (CTR is a common acronym that Mormons use that stands for 'choose the right'.)

Liv wore her new dress-up heels most of the morning, but somehow ended up at church with her new purple converse shoes on (with tag still on). Oh well.

It was pretty much a 'Lego' Christmas here. I'm pretty sure Santa got it right this year.

Todd and Tracey gave my parents a wonderful gift: A homemade ceramic jar filled with memories typed on slips of paper. My parents laughed and cried as they read some of them out loud.

After the presents were opened, the building began!

Tosh shows off one of his new cars:

Burke completed Hagrid's Hut and the Harry Potter Quidditch set in no time:

Hewitt did awesome building the Knight Bus:

I was happy to be his assistant while Rob made brunch!

The boys were bummed that we wouldn't let them build the Hogwart's Castle today, but they all had fun and stayed busy playing all afternoon after church.

Liv was cracking me up this afternoon. She put the new clothes and underwear that she got in a pink bag and carried that around for hours. She would take each piece out and admire and hug it and then put it back in her "shopping bag." Now whoever said that clothes for Christmas is boring for kids?! What a funny girl.

I was thankful to get just what I wanted this year: to spend Christmas together with my parents. Thanks for the nice gifts, cards, texts, etc. that we received. I love this time of year and am always sad when Christmas is over.

Merry Christmas!