Merry Christmas

Here in California real snowmen are hard to find. The other day Brycen suggested that we make a "rainman." Zac and Brycen thought it was pretty silly to add a carrot nose and paper eyes and a smile to a bucket of water.




Still, even without having true Christmas weather our town knows how to have a great Christmas. We have an adorable little skating rink in old town. My sister Ali and her boyfriend and I all took Brycen skating while Grandma watched and took pictures (the other boys were still in school, just one of the perks of half day kindergarten!) Brycen was kind of like a wet noodle in skates, but it was a lot of fun.




A couple weeks before Christmas, Santa rides through town in his sleigh pulled by his reindeer and a firetruck. They are escorted by the other firetrucks, and police cars and motorcycles--all decked on with Christmas lights and sirens blazing. They stop to hand out candy and collect can foods for the needy. Brycen was the only one who wanted to take a picture with Santa.

On Christmas Eve we invited my parents, one of our neighbors and the pair of missionaries from our church over for dinner. The missionaries are young men who leave their families for two years to serve their missions. Without them knowing, I contacted their moms and got their favorite Christmas recipes. They were very excited to have a bit of home away from home.



We ate and ate and ate and then we sung Christmas songs around the piano.

We had a very Lego Christmas this year. Lance and I stayed up until 2am putting together a Lego train and helicopter. The last two days have been spent putting together other Lego sets with the boys. Even my niece got Legos this year. Her brother has lots of Legos and little Hannah was just thrilled that there are finally Legos for girls.




Zac snug out of his bed on Christmas Eve to check out the toys under the tree. After that Lance slept on the couch by the tree to protect the presents.




Brycen was thrilled to see his lego train on Christmas morning.



Zac got a robot dinosaur in addition to legos.



Scott and his bongo drums.


Even Shay got a present


Lance and my brother playing Lance's new wii football game.



Lance got his big present a few days early when I surprised him with a weekend in Las Vegas to go watch BYU play in the Pioneer Bowl. We watch and froze as BYU lost badly, but we still had a great time.