Christmas Fun

These two girls are my cloggers.  They really did well in their Christmas Clogging Recital.  It's so fun to watch them dance.  And, I love those big, beautiful smiles.

This is how the landscape looked for most of the Christmas season.

On Christmas Eve, we had our traditional Christmas dinner with ham, funeral potatoes, fruit salad, rolls, veggie tray, and, of course, trifle and pies.  Scott and Amy and their kids came from Kansas to celebrate with us, along with Abish Lai and Grandpa Dalebout.

Besides Jenny and Ryan and family, Rachel and Val Jones joined us in the festivities.

Here are the grandkids after they had eaten their dinner.

Dick looks a little serious, don't you agree.  Little did he know that after dinner, he was going to be surprised with an item that he truly didn't expect.

Before we started the family program, I announced that Scott Kimball had been preparing something for us to perform that evening.  I took over a case to Scott and he opened it up.  There in the case was a brand new trumpet.  Scott pretended not to know how to put it together, and Dick was on his feet saying, "Whoa, Scott.  Where did you get that?" 

As it turned out, the trumpet was for Dick, and was he surprised!  He was very pleased, as this was the trumpet that he had been looking at at Summerhays Music and really wanted it.  He has been playing an old coronet that is about fifty years old for several months.  Look at the faces on those grandkids.

Sorry this picture is blurry.  Sam Kimball played a saxophone solo (Christmas song) for us and did a great job.  Way to go. Sam.

Val Jones and Dick (on his new trumpet) play a Christmas duet.  They sounded pretty good for a pair of old huffers.

Elle Kimball and Rachel Jones played a clarinet duet and they were awesome.

Our little Lyla "Bean" sang "The Sun'll Come out tomorrow" all the way through with a little help from Mom "Jenny."  It was sooo cute.

Milly and Jenny play "We Three Kings of Orient Are."  Milly is a great little piano player.

Amy Kimball and Ali Wood play our annual "Sleigh Ride" duet.  They did great!

Spencer Wood played a John Schmidt Christmas medley.  Good job, Spencer.

Ashlynn Kimball Played a beautiful river piece.  She has so much feeling in her music.

Zack Wood and I played "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," but I didn't get a picture of it.  Zack was great.  This grandma is so happy that her grandchildren love music as much as she does.

Zack, Elle, and Milly sing a song about Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem.  The kids all dressed up for the nativity, but this year, we had a reader's theater, which Amy put together.  It was taken from a talk by Jeffrey R. Holland and was given in the 1970's.  It was a wonderful depiction of the nativity.

Most of the adults had parts reading.  Here, Scott reads one of the parts.  After the nativity, we had a family prayer.  Then, we moved onto an interesting part, opening one present each.  Guess what?  Everyone in the family got pajamas for their present.  So, we all got in our pajamas and had family pictures.  We had such a fun time doing this.  Jenny and I had made the pajamas.  It was a labor of love.  This idea was taken from Bonnie Schrader, who makes pajamas for her two daughter's families  for every holiday. 

Here's the whole game in their PJ's.

Scott and Ryan and the boys posed for this fun picture.

Here's a picture with Abish and all the gang.  What a great looking crew.  That was fun and worth all the work.

Ali, Ashlynn, Spencer and Sam try to be "Rockets" in this photo. 

This Christmas Eve couldn't have been more fun.  What a great time we had together.