Saturday, December 26, 2009

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning is fun always fun.  Mandy and Nathan woke us up early and we unwrapped presents.  It was early enough that when I got back to bed it was before 7:30 am.

Nathan got what he wanted a Nitendo DS (I think) some small game thingy (you can tell I care a lot) from Santa and Mandy got a horse stable and horses from Santa.  They both got fun gifts from Mama and Daddy and have been spending many hours playing with them.

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Just as an aside I made a bunch of Christmas bags to "wrap" the presents in this year and boy was it nice on the wrapping end and on the clean up - yeah for being able to sew!

Christmas Eve

Each year we have Christmas Eve together (this year is was smaller than usual :( because of Cyndi, Asia and Bob's family's absence), but we still had a great time.  We met at the Turpin's and had delicious food, great entertainment, presents and a movie.  Beth and Dallas joined us so it was perfect.  I hope that every family has such as great time as we do!

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Bella

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Beth and Lizzy

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Katherine and Victoria

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Beth and most of the kids dancing to "I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" - Aunt Beth is great for making it fun for all the kids.

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David is so sweet with Joy!

 

On to the entertainment for the evening - in every sense of the word.  Mama, Daddy, Beth, Mandy and Nathan and I sang and played the bells or piano (Nathan) to Jingle Bells as our "talent".  It was a sad little production but we had fun!

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Mandy then played "Jolly Ole Saint Nicholas" and we all sang along - pretty good for a 6 year old!

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Then it was the Leavitt's turn and Katherine read to us the story of the candy cane and what it represents.

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Then the Turpins took their turn - they did 4 things really.  A puppet show, Jessi read a story and then we sang "Away in a Manager" and then we snuggled in for "Prep and Landing" a 25 minute Christmas story about getting ready for Christmas and believing - it was really cute.  Since we had it at the Turpin's we got to have Bella there too - we are lucky!

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Here are some just random pictures from the night.

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Joy loves Uncle Brad and while we were watching the movie she was insistent that he read to her.  It was very cute!

Friday, December 25, 2009

Making Gingerbread Houses

As with tradition we made gingerbread houses.  Mandy and Nathan did a great job.  Here are some pictures of the construction and finished product.

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Turpin Girls Photo Shoot

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I wanted to take some pictures of the girls to get more exposure and different looks so I dragged the Turpin girls (minus Bella) to a near by park and took a bunch of pictures.  Here are some of my favorites of my beautiful nieces.

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