Happy Holidays!

Christmastime this year was so fun. And I didn’t have to work Christmas Eve (first time in 7 years!) or Christmas day this year (since I worked it last year, I have this year off)!

Mic’s family always gets together on Christmas Eve- which is nice, that way on Christmas day we don’t have to visit three families in one day, which would be a challenge to coordinate everyone’s schedule.

The Ashby’s do dinner, reenact the nativity story with singing, and reading scriptures about Jesus’s birth, and the grandkids all dress up and play their parts (Mary, Joseph, wise men, sheppards, and an angel). This year we had a mini musical program as well since so many people in the family are so talented when it comes to playing instruments. For some numbers we had a whole string quartet! (2 violins, a viola, and a cello.) Afterwards we open presents in our name exchange.

Mic & his mom headed to clear the snow at  his grandparents house down the street. 

4 wheeling on Christmas Eve :)

All the grandkids minus Austin, playing the Wii. No one wanted to stop what they were doing for a picture so I had to quickly take this one. 

Some of the boys playing with the train set.

Cute Jaden was trying to get his great grandma & grandpa to play with the trains too. 

String Quartet playing Christmas music.

 Christmas day I woke up way too early. While Mic still slept I read part of Mic’s mom’s journal. (This year she typed up some of her journal entries over the years and made a book out of it for all of us. She added family photos too.) It’s fun reading about the Ashby family growing up, and especially reading about how Mic was when he was younger. Some parts of his personality now are still the same as he was described in the journals growing up- if that makes sense? Anyway it makes me smile.

Soph & Jack wanting to open their stockings

Soph got three new toys- a hedgehog, raccoon, and squirrel that  all squeek. She's obsessed. 

me & soph. 

After Mic and I exchanged our gifts for each other, and let Sophie open her stocking of toys we headed to my mom’s. We got together at her new house with my mom’s side of the family for brunch and opening presents. 

cute cousins

Cute cousins

Posing with our new Christmas clothes from my mom

Laura & I always get the same gifts from my mom- which we love. And this year she included the boys in matching outfits. Too funny. So we tried them all on for a picture. 

Christmas day evening we had dinner with my dad and grandma. I also introduced the family to the dice game Farkle, which Mic and I have played with friends of ours. It is such a fun fast paced game. Lots of laughter ensued. And my Grandma beat us all!

This year was perfect, and there was no drama with splitting time and holidays that sometimes comes from having split families.

I felt so blessed to be able to spend time with such great friends and family. We sure have a lot to be Thankful for.