Christmas

Christmas break was nice. We had a week out of school before Christmas. We were able to catch up on a lot of our Christmas traditions that we hadn't been able to get to during school. We went to the Bellagio and the cactus garden and made a gingerbread house and slept under the tree.  We also worked on Kwanzaa. We didn't have a full day this year to do it so we did a couple hours every morning.  We went and saw a movie as a reward on the day before Christmas Eve.

Grandma Zonda, Grandpa Cliff and Grandma Donna came to celebrate Christmas with us. They came the morning of Christmas eve. We went ice-skating that day. We had a lot of fun. But it was pretty hard for the kids. We realized they have never rollerskated it or rollerbladed or anything before. So there was a lot of falling and tears.  But they all stuck with it and by the end they had had a good time.

That evening we had Chinese food for dinner. We went over to the Pettingill's for a little bit to join their annual party. Then we acted out the nativity and opened sibling gifts.  Everyone was very happy with their sibling gifts this year. Danny got Nike slides, Rachel got a color-changing cat night light, Aaron got a cotton candy maker, Seth got pokemon cards and Ruby got a magic bucket of cookie dough.

On Christmas we got up at 6:45. We opened gifts for a while. The kids got a new trampoline, Bob got a gas fire pit, Aaron got a new Xbox, Danny got a lot of games and controllers for the Xbox, Rachel  got a lot of art supplies and a electronic tablet for drawing. Seth and Ruby got a superheroes playmation game that they both loved. They got Legos and Pokémon toys.

 After presents we had Norwegians for breakfast. We played for a while. Then we had sacrament meeting at 1:00. It was nice to have church on Christmas. Then we came home and had our second annual testimony meeting.

On the day after Christmas, my parents took the kids to the store to buy me a birthday present. Then we celebrated my birthday by going to dinner that night. Then we went to see the Christmas lights at the speedway after that.