Christmas 2010

I'm sad to say that I, personally, took no pictures this Christmas. I guess I'll just have to steal some from my mom.

Christmas was great this year. Very low-key and relaxed. We spent the night at my parent's house and all the kids were able to fit into the room in the basement so we were back to our traditional sleepover on Christmas Eve. I found it hard to go to sleep because I was so happy to be with my family and we have the best time teasing each other.

Christmas morning we had Monkey bread with hot chocolate and orange juice. We opened stockings and then presents. We were so blessed this year and received lots of fun stuff. But I always like to remember what I gave instead of what I got. A few presents I was excited to give this year were:

• Bow ties to Brian. He's wanted one for a while now so he can look like our High Councilman, Brother Knott. And the other Architecture student in our ward wears one so Brian decided he needed one too.
• Countdown blocks for my sister Nat. I made these myself. Well I painted and glued and vinyled (not sure that's a verb). I don't have a saw to cut wood myself.
• A Malagasy Book of Mormon to my brother Brad. I know he can't read it yet, but I thought it was a pretty cool gift and he seemed pretty excited. We were looking through it and the words for "Doctrine & Covenants" each have 8 syllables. 8 each! 16 syllables to say two words that take us 5 syllables. Good Luck Brad!

After presents at my house we went to Brian's for just a little bit. When we'd woken up at 7:30 Brian joked that we should call his family because they were probably done by then. We found out that he was right. :)

Unfortunately we weren't able to stay long because we were going to visit my Grandma Barlow in the hospital. She had a bad fall about a week before and had to have surgery on her shoulder. It was said to see her like that, but I'm glad we got to go visit on Christmas.

After spending some time there, we headed up to Bountiful to spend the rest of the day with my Grandma & Grandpa Walker. We had a yummy lunch and then watched "Date Night" the edited version, which my parents had gotten for me and my sister.

I also ended up finishing Brian's final present, which was an afghan he had requested about 2 weeks before Christmas. It's huge! But I finished it on Christmas so I still made the deadline. And he loves it. So do I.

Overall, a great Christmas. We are so blessed and so grateful for our wonderful families and friends.

Here's to a fabulous 2011!