Christmas Excitement

Blaine and I had a wonderful Christmas and hope each of you did as well. I know this post has several pictures but hey, aren't you supposed to take a lot of pictures on Christmas. Anyway let's get on to what we did over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

On Christmas Eve, we got to see Blaine's brother Thayne and his family who we haven't got to see in about 2 years. They drove up from New Mexico and it was fun to get to hang out with them. Blaine's Grandma Edwards also drove up from Delta to come and spend Christmas with us as well.

On Christmas Eve we went over to Blaine's Uncle Robert's for awhile, then as we were coming home we were pretty hungry. It was already about 7:00pm and so we didn't really want to make anything, so we went to the one of the only open restaurants IHOP. I know pretty sad for a Christmas Eve dinner. We had originally planned to make a much bigger and more traditional dinner, but since some of us hadn't eaten lunch until 2:00pm, we didn't, so it was off to IHOP we went.

(Blaine, Heather, Grandma Edwards, Jean & Wayne at IHOP)

After dinner we came back home and played a card game that Grandma Edwards taught us. We love playing different games and get to play a lot of them when we come to Blaine's parents. After playing games Wayne, Blaine's dad, read us the story of the birth of Christ in Luke 2. I love hearing this every year. It reminds of what the true meaning of Christmas is and that we need to keep Jesus Christ at the center of our lives. After reading the account of the birth of Christ, we talked about past Christmas memories that we had. It was particularly fun listening so Grandma Edwards and her memories.

After this, Blaine and I opened my Grandma Smoot's Christmas presents. This is a tradition in my family. Grandma Smoot always gives us pajamas and a teddy bear. It is so much fun getting into the pajamas and wearing them on Christmas Eve.

(Heather showing off her new pajama pants)

(Blaine modeling his new pajamas as nickers. Those of you who
know him know how much he loves to show off his tall socks.)

On Christmas morning we all woke up at about 7:00am to open up our presents. We all got some fun stuff that I'm sure we'll be enjoying for the next little while.

(Heather opening a present)

(Grandma Edwards and Wayne)

My mom got Blaine a United States trivia game for Christmas. She has the junior edition at her house and Blaine loves it. However there is a pretty funny story that goes along with it. The one thing that Blaine told me that he didn't want this year was clothes. He told me to let everyone know, because he thought clothes were boring. So my mom who had already gotten Blaine the game told me to get his some type of clothing and have him open it first. So I got him a jacket that was also from my mom. As soon as he opened it, he told me, "I thought you said nobody had gotten me any clothes." Although he was grateful, he was obviously disappointed. That was until he opened his game from my mom as well. Then I started laughing as he realized the jacket was a joke just to get him upset. But he really did enjoy the trivia game, in fact he insisted that we played it as soon as we were done opening up the presents.

(Blaine with his new game)

After the fun of the morning was over we got ready for the day. Thayne and Amber came over with their kids around 12:00pm and Matt and Cari with their kids around 2:00pm. Jeff and Kelli also came over with their boys a little later that night. We spent the afternoon having a nice Christmas dinner, playing games, and just talking since many of us hadn't been together in such a long time.

(Blaine's dad, Wayne, with our niece Jayne)

(Blaine's mom, Jean, with our nephew Owen)

(Matt, Cari, Alli, Jeff & Josh)

It was a wonderful Christmas with lots of memories. Thanks to Wayne and Jean for letting us stay at their house for the holidays. We love coming to Utah, especially since we did get a White Christmas this year.

One other fun thing that Blaine and I did. We will be flying back to Mississippi by the way of New Orleans on January 1st. Since Blaine is a huge University of Utah fan, and they got into the Sugar Bowl this year, and the Sugar Bowl just happens to be in New Orleans on January 2nd, we bought tickets to go. Yes we are going to go to the Sugar Bowl and we are really excited, even if we are in the nosebleed section. You can be sure that there will be a blog entry about it.

GO UTES!!!

(Blaine & Heather Sugar Bowl Bound)