Christmas

Yeah, I'm a little late on this, but I have a good excuse. I wanted to post pictures on here because Farris surprised me with a digital camera (well, he got it for the family, but we--and he--knows who it is really for) for Christmas. So I took all these great shots, and now I can't get our computer to recognize the camera to download them. I've been working on it and no success, so I'll write now and download later. Or I'll just go to walmart and get them put on a disk. Anyway...
Christmas was wonderful. We finally had Christmas eve/morning at our own house instead of our parents, and as much as we missed having grandparents around, we enjoyed starting our own traditions. On Christmas eve we read the Christmas story from the Bible from this great picture book with Joseph Brindley's paintings, it's called "When Jesus was born in Bethlehem" and is beautiful. We also got a great idea from the friend magazine where you each think of a gift to give Jesus, in other words, something that you can do to show Him your love and appreciation. Felicity decided she would help mom, Caleb will be reverent during prayers and FHE, Joseph will be potty trained (ok, we helped him with that), and Seth will grow big and strong (ditto). Farris and I decided to work on speaking gently and kindly to the kids (yeah, that means not yelling). We got Christmas Eve pajamas for the kids to wear and they went to sleep pretty well considering. Then we got to play Santa for the first time! In the morning, Farris and I were the first awake. We wanted to have breakfast eaten and everyone dressed before stockings and presents. The kids loved their stocking stuff(Felicity was disappointed that Seth got the largest stocking, she had wanted it) and then we had fun watching the kids open presents. Joseph stopped to play after each one, especially the balls. After presents we got looking out the window to nice weather and thought that we should probably try to make it to Idaho right then instead of waiting 'til the next day. We agreed to meet Farris' sister and brother and their families in Ogden and caravan with them, and we threw everything together as fast as possible. We only forgot a few things and we remembered each kid, so not too bad. After we got to Ogden, we decided to wait for the next morning any way, and spent the night there. The next day we called to see if the interstate was open about every hour, and finally at 4:00 we decided the interstate was never going to open and we had better go around the other way. Again, the rushing and throwing things together and eventually we went through Pocatello to get to Burley. Luckily the roads weren't bad and we all made it. We spent the next week going between family's. We also managed a session in the Twin Falls temple(yea!) and watched our kids have loads of fun with cousins. We finally headed home on new years day so we could get ready for Seth's blessing. All in all, a very good Christmas and hope it was for you, too!