Christmas Day

I'll try not to go too overboard with the Christmas pictures, but it was just such a GREAT day!

My family and Neil's family only live about 10 miles apart, so our holidays are always double booked, but I wouldn't have it any other way!!

We woke up pretty early at our house so we could open our presents and then head over to my sister's house to watch her kids open presents too. This is me with one of my favorite presents- new Uggs! One of my other fav presents was a Heart rate monitor (I've wanted for probably 3 years now)

Neil got a new racquetball racquet (or is it racket?) which he used a few weeks earlier and I had to take it away so I could wrap it! (He did the same thing with the Blu-Ray player- he just couldn't wait until Christmas!) This was Neil's FIRST year he didn't have to wear glasses to open presents because he had his vision corrected earlier this year. He was pretty happy about that.

Over at Max and Livvie's house.

Berrie, Liv, and a Barbie hair salon!

My dad's new (and very weird) running shoes. He's into this new thing called Chi Running, so these shoes are like those toe socks, but their hard on the soles.

Nicholas and Tinkerbell getting into thier stockings

Tinky got a Barbie laptop and Reagan got her new ballerina outfit.

Neil, me, and Jill

Taylor and Dad. The painting my Dad is holding up is of The Patron Saint of Dentistry.

Pat was extra excited for the Susan Boyle cd we got him!

Blake and Neil got new leg holsters...

AND new semi-automatics!

We always have Christmas lunch at my Grandma CC's.
Here's my Uncle Scott, The back of grandma, Colter, Blake, and Nick.
The Hobson fam
Some Garretts, Some Nelsons

Christensen Crew

After we eat lunch with my Mom's side of the family, we head to Neil's grandma's and then to my other Grandma's house.

Like I said, we have very busy holidays! Hope you had a Merry Christmas too!

"Let Me Just Adjust My Lens..."

I wanted to share the funniest present given on Christmas Eve...

My brother in law, Jeff had his sister take a nice boudoir shot of him and print it on canvas for my sister (his wife) Berrie.

We thought it was pretty hilarious!

Here's a nice close up for ya! (It's okay to laugh)

Christmas Eve

I thought I'd break down all the Christmas Festivities into 2 or 3 posts to try to avoid overwhelming everyone (mostly me!). We'll start with Christmas eve.

Oh, I lied! My Dad's work party was actually on the 23rd... Anyways, I was invited to go to the work party because I worked there for 7 years and I still work there 3 months a year when I'm not in school.

Jolyn (in the purple shirt and blonde hair) is my dad's office manager and she put together a fun game for us to play. She wrapped a present about 50 times and we all sat in a circle rolling a dice, when you got a 6, you ran up to the present, put on the gloves and the antlers and started opening the present 1 LAYER AT A TIME! It was super fun!

Here's my mom

And Jo and my Dad.
Now on to real Christmas Eve. We had our annual BINGO party at Neil's parents house. Always a fan favorite!

Then we went to my parents house to opening the presents that we drew names for. Here's me and Livvie (we both had curly hair that night AND she picked out pink ear buds to give me)
Me and Neils :)
Reagan putting make up on Tay
And everyone who was there with our new ornaments. Shelley and Sean were in Denver and John and Stef were in Cali :(
It was a very busy Christmas Eve and I can't believe it came and went so fast!

Creativity At It's Finest

My uncle Steven is a photoshop genius and made this hilarious Christmas card that I wanted to share with you all.

He put his family in as the Cullen family. It honestly took me quite a while to figure out who the card was from.

Anyways, my family thought it was pretty great!

ENJOY!

Game TiMe :)

Neil and I LOVE to play games!! Lucky for us we've had a couple of way fun game nights the past few days. Over the weekend, we hooked up with a few of my old high school friends (and their significant others) and had a BLAST!

One game we played was called LCR and you pass around dollar bills according to what the dice say.

Me, Neil, Jamie, and Brad were the last 4 people in the game...
and Jamie won it all!
Last night, we got together with Neil's siblings (plus their significant others) to have another game party! We were in heaven with all these people to play games with!

Playing Catch Phrase from left to right: Shannon, Blake, Leah, Ryan, and Stella
Everyone (but Neil). Can anyone guess who Neil's siblings are? None of them look too similar, so it might be a little tricky. If I didn't know them, I doubt I could tell who's who.
Shannon and Blake

If you ever want to play games with us, let me know! We are always up for a game night! But, just so you know, Neil and I will most likely KICK Your BUTTS!

The Lazy Version of a Christmas Card

Peanut Brittle

We got to have our peanut brittle making party this week down at Leah's house.

My sweet father in law bought me this darling, tiny, PINK, flashlight and I love it!

Here's me and Neil getting ready to start mushing the hot lava stuff in with the peanuts.
The mushing beings
Dawn, Leah, Neil, and Blake smushing it all out flat, "1 peanut high"
Blake and Shannon becoming the mushers.
Monica is acting like Pat (who yells at everyone while making the peanut brittle) while Leah and Ryan smush.
Neil decided to play one of those hand slapping games with his 9 year old niece. I thought it was kinda mean, but she seemed to like it for some reason.
We also celebrated Henry's 6th birthday and his cake (from the Lion House) was AMAZING!!
I love all our Christmas Traditions!

Christensen Celebration

This weekend we had a very fun Christensen Christmas party. It started with some competitive volleyball (I know we all look nice in these pictures but Neil actually got a sprained ankle from our vicious game!)

See the intensity on their faces?!
Uncle Ta
Max and Liv making the coolest ornaments!
The Young fam (minus Alex)
My mom and Lindsay
We had an awesome dinner and great entertainment too! I have a very fun family!

Big H

Earlier this week we went with the Johnson family to Hires for the traditional dinner and Temple Square lights. It was much too cold for the temple lights, so we just had a great dinner of Big H's and headed home.

Here's some random pics from that night.

We were also able to get together with some of our best friends who we don't see as often as before due to babies, work, holidays, etc. We took a picture at Pier 49 just because our get togethers don't happen like they used to!