Merry Christmas???

Since I am such and amazing blogger recently, I decided to catch up the family journal.  Yep, Merry Christmas!  (Hey-according to the last date it was Dec. 5th)  :) 
Thank goodness for a few pictures to remind me that we really had a nice Christmas.  The middle of December we had our first annual Gold Christmas gathering with some friends from our ward.  I just have to add quickly that I LOVE our ward.  I wish I had a house big enough to fit everyone in it.  Andy and I decided that we are going to have to have some sort of party rotation so we can somehow get everyone over here because we seriously want to be friends with everyone in the ward.  Anyhow-that said, we had a little gathering for FHE and it turned out great.  I grew up having homemade donuts for Christmas Eve.  (My Aunt Mary makes the BEST donuts!!)  Well, since I've moved away and can't always be home for Christmas I decided I would start that as one of our family traditions because it just doesn't seem like Christmas without them-or homemade chili for that matter...
We read from Luke and the kids dressed up and told the Nativity Story.  We sand a few carols and then had homemade donuts and hot chocolate.  YUMMY!!

We were so lucky to have so many Angels.  Halle insisted that she be a Snow White Princess Angel....Hence the scowl on her face prior.  :)  I love how E. is giving her a "chill out" look.

We had the 3 Wise Men from "a fire" (Texas slang Afar)

Everyone loves the baby Jesus in the pink flower blanket. :)

I wish I'd taken more pictures but oh well.  Thanks to those who made it a fun night.

Later in the month we invited some of our neighbors to join us for the Stake Nativity Exhibit.  This is really a beautiful event.  They have hundreds of nativities from all over displayed among about 30 fresh cut Christmas trees.  There is wonderful musical numbers and a nativity dress up area that the kids always love.  Here are this years pictures.

If only I could always remember this picture when they are arguing...

 

We also ran into some dear friends who were visiting.  I love how every kid is looking in a different direction. ha!

Cutie Pies!

We then kicked into football mode as we headed to the State Championships.  Andy's school made it, which is apparently a big deal since Texas really takes their football seriously.  I can't remember if this was their first time or 2nd time in forever but either way, it was very exciting.  Especially since they held the tournament at Dallas Cowboy Stadium.  I still can't get over that-probably cause I come from a little bitty town that didn't even have a stoplight.  Anyhow, the kids and I joined Andy's parents and had a great time.  So sad that Andy had to work cause he would have loved the enormous televisions inside.  I was so glad they had them too cause some idiot was standing in front of us the entire game!

Kids and Grandma-50 yard line!

It was really cold outside-yes, even for Texas.  I was so happy to be in a nice warm stadium with soft comfy chairs.  This place really is amazing.  There are at 'least' 8 giant TVs to watch the game and then 3 circular ones that go around the entire stadium with adds and other such stuff.  And the $9 ticket was a much better price than the several hundred for the Super Bowl later on..Of course unlike the Super Bowl, our team lost, but it was still a blast. 

I just have to say how funny it was that for the first part of the game-my kids kept cheering for BYU!! ha ha