Christmas 2007!

Our Tree

This is the first year we've decorated for Christmas since we moved to Heber/Overgaard. It's not much of a tree, but it holds a lot of precious things. It was fun to get up in the attic and bring everything down. I found all kinds of decorations and ornaments that my mom painted and lots of memories flooded my mind and heart. I took all the ones I could find that she had painted for my kids over the years down to them on Christmas... She would paint their names and the date on them so it was easy to tell which ones they were. It was a good thing...

Oh, what fun we had at Grandma Ella Mae's house Christmas morning. There were kids and toys and food galore! We did our standard Christmas-morning breakfast... bacon, sausage, eggs, pancakes, toast, orange juice, hash browns, etc., and of course the sneaked-in chocolate candy, stocking treats and cookies!

Then we played the traditional Gift Game... everyone brings small, white-elephant type gifts and everyone tries to find (and keep) the best one... three trades, however, it's out of the running... I guess the Ding Dongs were the #1-wanted gift this year. Grandpa Steve ended up with them, but afterwards shared as far as they went!

Above you see some of the children gathered around Senecca, Tim and Nicolle's daughter, opening her choice... a bit like vultures, don't you think!

You can also see Karen, our oldest, with her prized Christmas present... best-ever gift!.... her own personal megaphone! (soooooooo NOT that she needs it!) but loved anyway... Her comment when Julie gave it to her was that her life was now complete ... Gary, at the same time, received his best gift, at least this year... ear protectors that he can wear when she has that megaphone in her hands! I can't even imagine the scene next year at the Mountain View High School football games! Heaven help us! Fun stuff.

Here you see them raising their gifts allowing someone to see what was available for the snagging before choosing something new off the table... I think Julie was cheating, however... trying to throw them off track by holding up a doily!! She really wanted to keep her Head Light (she's modeling it).... (Karen still with megaphone in place!) Kacey is on the phone with Matthew, her brother and our oldest grandchild who's on a mission in Florida. Christmas is great because we can talk to our missionaries!


Then Lisa Heche arrived to round out the morning.... Lisa is our newest 'daughter'.... she was a terrific friend of Kristi's and always welcome at our family gatherings and in our homes.... She's posing here with David, our youngest.

Here, Steve's mom, Ella Mae,.... mom to some, mother-in-law to me, Grandma to others and Great-Grandma to even more and friend to all! She is wonderful! She's our greatest gift. Here she is reading a book to Boston, Julie's youngest son. The book is called "Room for a Little One, A Christmas Tale" by Martin Waddell and Jason Cockcroft. It's a sweet little book that should be in every family's library, whether you have small children or grandchildren or just for yourselves. In fact, I just went to Amazon.com and ordered one for me... got a Used-like new one for $3.70 plus shipping, which still made it less than you can get it on sale in the stores right now.

Well, this my report on Christmas 2007. Hope you all had a wonderfully special celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

This is Kimball, Tim's little guy. Tim, Zachary (Kimball's brother) and Kimball are here for a couple of days to help Grandpa Steve frame a house. Their momma and sisters had to stay in Mesa because the girls ended up sick with hacky coughs, etc., and couldn't come. Kimball is warming up by the fire... it's a lot colder here than at home and they went out in the snow (snowing as I write this) and Kimball decided that warming his toes in front of the fire and drinking hot cocoa with Grandma was better than hanging out in the windy, snowy weather! It's only 19 degrees afterall.... This is one smart kid!

Ok, that's all for now... ya'll have a great day, ya hear!