Christmas Eve

What a fun day! We started by getting the house and food ready for the Christmas Eve party at our house with Clinton's family. At 1:00 pm we got ready to go sledding up the Canyon with Anthony, Tate, Duke "Anthony's new dog" and Karin's family. While we waited for everyone, Ashes pulled Tyler in the sled on flat ground, everyone there was saying how cute it was, secretly a little jealous. When Anthony, Tate and Duke got there we let the dogs run around and Ashes, the smart dog she is decided to go down a mountain side and went halfway down and then turned to come back up the hill but the snow was too deep and the mountain too steep. She ended up going down to the river, got stuck and swam it several times before Clinton got down to help her out. Anthony and Duke headed down to help out too. She was wet and cold and by the time we went home she had little icicles on her fur coat, :( poor dog. Sledding was a blast, Tyler had a great time and loved going fast. Half way through he wanted to go on the boogie board, because it was so much faster. He was very brave and had a constant smile smeared on his face. I love that Tyler & Tate, and Ashes & Duke are such good buddies.





















We then returned home to finish the last minute food things before everyone arrived. Thanks to Karin for helping cut the veggies, bringing food and then later cleaning up, she's the best! We had soup "Chicken Noodle and Chicken Tortilla", Yummy! The kids painted ornaments, and decorated cookies, we then had a story and activity from Royce who did a great job and helping everyone focus on the wonderful qualities each person has, we then got to read what everyone had to say, it was great to know how we are perceived in others eyes and recognize the good qualities we have. Then we watched the Nativity, which was short but definitely something the kids would hopefully remember. Then Travis had a little game, which was a lot of fun. We had to draw a picture on our head, without looking at it and you earned points for different things in your drawing. Lets just say some did better then others. Next was our gift exchange, the kids favorite part of the night. Tyler opened many presents, some transformers, etcha scketch, doodle board, Curious George book, sticker book, and from Mom and Dad, Clone War PJ's and Hungry Hippo game. We then ended the evening with Mom sharing a book with us "A Christmas Dress for Ellen" which was about a family in her ward "Ann Jepson".






I must say one of my favorite parts of the evening was watching Ashes and Duke playing tug-a-war with a bone. It was such a wonderful Christmas present to Ashes to have someone to play with and it made me smile all night and even think about getting another dog. It was a wonderful night and I appreciated all the help with activities and clean up. My only disappointment was that most of my pictures once again were very blurry. So for all the others who took pictures, please send me copies. Gracious!