Paul & Sue visit

We took a quick trip to Broken Arrow (Tulsa area) today to visit Uncle Paul and Aunt Sue. I can't imagine a Christmas without seeing them! They have always been so good at making it a point to be around for the holidays and have truly made Christmas so much fun. They always think of the most amazing, thoughtful gifts and they are SO hard to shop for in return because they also take good care of themselves! They are so much fun to be around. It is hard to see them going through such a difficult time with Sue's ALS. They are awesome people. Awesome.

Mom wasn't able to make the trip because she had the flu, so we missed having her there. The kids were so much better this trip than the were when we visited in August, I was really pleased with them.

Did I mention I have an amazing family? I just can't say enough about how great these people are that I've been blessed to be a part of.

BFF

It has been so nice getting together with close friends from high school while Marna is in town for Christmas. We called Dayna in Utah so that she could be a part of our get together a few days ago and then we got together again tonight. It is wonderful to be able to start where we've left off and still feel a closeness that has not diminished. We are still close enough that we can tease Heather about the plant that is growing out of her head in this picture! I'm so excited to be less than five minutes from her now so that we can see each other ALL of the time! Now we just have to convince Marna and Dayna to come back. Ok, there is NO hope for Dayna to come back, but we're still working on Marna.

Christmas 2007

I have taken WAY too many pictures this year to post even the best of them on my blog, so I'm just going to put up a link to my web album.

The reason for my many, many pictures is my NEW camera! Yippee. I'm so excited that I no longer have to hold the battery door closed while I'm trying to take pictures. Plus it has tons of cool features that I will actually use and I just love it. Thanks Santa!

We have had a lovely Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve day with my parents and brother and went ahead and exchanged gifts because mom had to work Christmas day. We scooted off for the evening to Jeff's parents house and had a yummy spaghetti dinner and a nice time with his parents, Joe, Kim and her family, Amy and her kids, and Grandpa Poyner. Lesley and Spencer and spouses opted to stay in Utah for the break since they've made so many trips to Oklahoma this year for weddings and funerals. We missed them, but still had a really nice time. Granny sat down with the kids and explained all of the parts of the nativity and then read them a nice story before we started opening gifts. There are just too many people to do it in much of an orderly fashion, so we just divide up into families and piles and go after it, occasionally sending a thank you across the room and running to show off something new.

Christmas morning the kids came in to sit with me on the couch with their usual morning milk and Lincoln said, "I want more presents for Christmas." I told him he should look and see if Santa brought anything in the night, that I thought I'd heard him while I was sleeping. He looked on the other side of the fireplace and said, "nope, nothing yet." I had to really encourage him to go and look by the tree and turn on the lights so that they could see. They were really excited to have a candy cane first thing and then enjoyed their gifts too. We took it really easy and played with new toys and gifts all morning before heading back to my parents for the afternoon. We had a lovely and simply turkey dinner prepared mostly by my dad and just enjoyed each other through the evening.

I'm so blessed to have such wonderful family so close by.

I hope that all of you have had a great Christmas as well.