Christmas Eve - We enjoyed being at home together. I love it when Matt has the day off. We worked on getting the house cleaned up so we could enjoy a clean house on Christmas. I honestly don't remember what else, just things we needed to get done. We did open one present each that night. Matt gave me The Field of Dreams. I love that movie. I gave Matt new gloves. He lost last year's. That night we had Family Home Evening about Christmas. I decided that for lesson we should read a little out of the December Friend and then share our testimonies of the Savior with Amy. I felt close to the Lord and enjoyed His spirit as we did this despite the fact that Amy started screaming soon after I started sharing my testimony. So it goes. We went to bed only for me to get up in the night and go put Matt's stocking out in the living room. (I had already filled it when I wrapped his presents, and I didn't want Matt even guessing about the things in it.)
Christmas - Amy let us sleep in. Yippee! I got up first and made corn bread. (Matt's mom's recipe. He loves it.) He had said the night before that he was going to make it for breakfast, but I didn't give him the chance because I woke up first. I also insisted on showering and taking out the trash before we started. Finally Matt had had it. (I hadn't even let him go out to where his stocking was.) So we went out to the living room and had Amy open presents and then had breakfast. We wanted Amy to participate and enjoy opening presents, so we did that before we ate while she was in a good mood. Good thing too because she got upset while we ate. Amy got a new book, a movie (Veggie Tales. God Made You Special), a little people nativity scene from her cousins and a hamper shaped like a pelican like the one the Drummonds have. I gave Matt the first installment of The Twelve Dates of 2008. There were 6 little gifts that represented dates we would go on in 2008. He loved it! Yay! Matt partially wrapped a huge box that had more, smaller boxes inside. It took a while to get down to the actual presents (a CD of The Secret Garden (the musical) and a Stargirl journal. Stargirl is a book that has significance in our family. We love it for one thing. And I have a cousin who named herself Stargirl after reading the book. This journal has quotes in it from the book and its sequel.) Then we watched Field of Dreams. That afternoon we worked on the very involved dinner that Matt requested for his Christmas meal. My parents and brother, Scott joined us. We finished off the night playing games as Armstrongs usually do.
Wednesday the 26th. Matt went back to work. I was going to stay home, but I couldn't resist going back to my mom's. So I finally left after locking myself out (with Amy thank goodness) and waiting for Matt to come home from work and let me back in to get my keys). I didn't tell anyone I was coming, just showed up. We hung out all day and had a great time. That night my brother, Andy came down with his family including his in-laws. One of his sisters-in-law, Natalie, was going to the airport the next night so she spent the night at my mom's too. Laurel, Scott, Natalie and I stayed up way too late talking. What a blast! The next day was the royalty party. My mom likes throwing royalty parties for lots of small kids in our family. Tons of people ended up coming. There's a talent show, story time, singing, pictures, and a royal procession. Everyone comes in announced as Princess (or Prince) (their name), the (adjective). Like Amy was Princess Amy the Lovely. What a fun mom I have! Here is how some of how she described the time we spent together while Laurel's family was in town: (We had to miss Finn's blessing because it was the same day as the Christmas program.)
*We went to Logan for Finn's blessing. saturday: Andy has a new electric guitar with microphone. Richard sang his traditional "O Holy Night" with guitar this year. James sang, told jokes, and fielded responses from the audience. (the boy is two!) Ryan Scott did his standup comedy and I told my Sam and the Greenbean man. Nita's family was with...twas funny to see the 2 grandpas doing interpretive dance to Andy's piano music. Yummy food with Nita, her mom, and sisters in the kitchen. Since Andy was playing the piano for the Christmas choir, he recruited some family to sing along. James broke away from his mom and was determined to "help" his Dad play the organ for "I heard the Bells". I took James out. He broke free of me and ran down the aisle, determined to get to his Dad. I RAN after him, made a grab and missed. I finally caught him just as he reached the stairs. So that is the first time I've RUN in church.
*Royalty party. Christmas Eve for us was the. 27th. (kids went with inlaws on 25th). Royalty party included playing instruments, being introduced from the "Royal Road" (long piece of yellow fabric), RyScott juggling, Storytime, dancing in a line, singing a royal song, building castles from blocks, a castle made from cardboard. Grandma Faye made gingerbread men. We have a crawlspace that Aly named "the forest" (in fairy tales the forest is dark and a bit mysterious). I told the children that they could go read in the forest. Shane (Matt's son) was NOT fooled. "Grammy", he said, "this isn't a mysterious forest, it's just plain ol' food storage
*Playing in the snow with spray bottles with food coloring and water. (mountains and cones). James has a plastic megaphone thing that he calls his "ipod". He also has bendable sticks he puts on like headphones to "check his email".
*Aly and James playing their play guitars. (Aly's bright pink, James' black)
*We invaded a South American restaurant close to our house. Richard and the two Ryans sang songs in Spanish (Karaoke style). we danced up a storm. Matt invited Malia to dance and she came running with her great big grin. We could hardly get around to eating the yummy food with all the dancing and singing.
We had a very fun 2nd Christmas with our family and Andy's mother-in-law. (We love Anita's whole family.)
This is Matt and Amy coming into the living room on Christmas morning.
