After our weekend trip to Oklahoma City, we spent the rest of the year at home. Just our family. It was great! In 15 years of marriage, Tyler and I had only celebrated Christmas morning at our own home once. This was our second time, and I couldn't wait. Tyler worked a couple days before Christmas Eve, but then had the next 10 days off from work. We enjoyed every quiet, relaxing day together with the girls and had fun together. Before I get into those details, I forgot to mention two other December events. We had our ward Christmas Party on December 12th, and it was themed, A Night in Bethlehem. We dressed up, ate food from booths, and enjoyed the nativity acted out. I had enough extra fabric with some old sheets that I was able to make robes for everyone in the family. We had our picture taken together before we left. It was a fun evening. Tyler cooked lamb three different ways for the dinner, and Abby played her bass with some other primary kids during the program. On December 15th, Tyler and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary. We went out to eat and did our last minute Christmas shopping. Tyler looked up the anniversary gifts and found that timepieces and crystal were both listed for a 15th anniversary, so he found this clock with crystal pieces. I love it! It plays songs on the hour and when the song is playing, hidden pictures of horns show up as the numbers spin. It's really awesome. He always finds the best gifts. I really love that guy!
Once Tyler started his long break from work, the fun began. We organized a Christmas Eve get together with our friends the Kasallis's with their relatives who were also in town. We wanted to do all the usual Gibbons Christmas traditions, so we had a talent show, a pinata, and a nativity play. We started the festivities by making a turkey dinner. Tyler wanted to fry a turkey (which we love doing), so that was our meal of choice. I had to take a picture of him once he had his apron and protective eyewear on. After dinner, we started with the talent show. Abby played Ode to Joy on the piano - a song she learned on her own during the school break. I videoed everyone else, but forgot to take pictures. Taryn and Aubrey both danced to a song and Tessa did some gymnastic tumbling for us. I played my French horn and Tyler even did his famous clogging steps. Everyone in the other families participated as well and we all had a fun time.
Next, we did the pinata outside on our patio. Here are all the kids lined up from youngest to oldest to wait for their turn. I took pictures of each kid getting ready to hit the pinata, but they all looked the same, so I just included Taryn's, so you could at least see what the pinata looked like. We even included a special coin for each kid that coincided with a numbered present that we had wrapped inside. Each was just a little gift from the dollar store, but it was like Christmas came early as they all opened their gifts and had fun playing with them.
The kids were put in charge of the nativity and deciding who would play what part. We even got to use the robes again that I had made for the ward party, so that was great. Abby and AJ were Mary and Joseph, and the youngest child, Nolan (AJ's cousin), was Baby Jesus. We had a lot of angels and only 2 wisemen, which is usually the case with all the girls we have. Taryn opted to be the donkey since the Kasallis's have awesome animal outfits. I thought that was pretty cute. They did great acting and following along as the nativity story was read.
On Christmas morning, it was just our family, which is what I was most excited about this year. The girls opened up their Christmas Eve pajamas on Christmas Eve, so I was able to take their picture in those pajamas with their Santa gifts before anything was opened.
Santa, Mom and Dad, and Grandparents must have been extra nice this year as you can tell from all the presents and new things in the picture. From scooters, long boards, and gymnastic mats to tablets, headphones, and games, all the girls were happy with all their presents. We had fun taking breaks after each round of presents to open them and let the girls play for awhile before opening more presents, so that stretched the day out and was a lot of fun and lot less stressful. It was a great Christmas Day!
So we were invited over to the Kasallis's to swim in their heated pool on Christmas day, which the girls loved. I wished I had taken a picture, because the next day I was taking pictures like the following. We went from swimming on one day to playing in the snow the next. It was so crazy! It started snowing Christmas night and it didn't stop all weekend. Our church was even cancelled on Sunday because it was so deep. The girls loved playing in the snow with all the neighbor kids. Tyler and I even had fun once a snowball fight started with our neighbors across the street.
Those neighbors, the Romney's, are also from church and good friends of ours. They were in the process of moving to Arizona when the snow came. We were sad that they were moving, but happy to have one last day to play and hang out with them. Their only daughter, Remy, was right between Abby and Tessa in age, so she played with our girls a lot. Here she is on the far left with Claire (another member neighbor), Abby, and AJ.
Remy's dad pulled out the four-wheeler to take the kids for sled rides up and down the street. My girls took turns riding on the sled. Abby rode with Aubrey and then Tessa took a turn with Remy.
Another neighbor family, the Reddings, were around to play as well. Here's Tessa and Aubrey with Bianca in the middle. They played in the snow and built a snowman together. We really love our cul-de-sac and where we live. We know almost everyone on our street and all the kids play really well together.
Sunday night, since church had been cancelled, Tony Kasallis, got permission to do the sacrament, so we went over to their house and Tyler, Tony, and Tony's brother-in-law, Nate, blessed and passed the sacrament to us all. I took a picture of the kids all lined up together before we started. We had a little spiritual thought afterwards and everyone shared what they love about their family. It was awesome to do something spiritual since we missed out on our regular meetings. We love having such amazing friends!
That was my last picture of 2015, but we did a lot more fun things that last week of the year. We played our new games, did puzzles, and cooked yummy food. We had the Davis family over for dinner and games one night. (Claire from an earlier picture is from that family.) They also live near us and we get along with them really well. They hosted a New Years Eve party that we went to and had fun playing games and eating food with some families in the ward while waiting to ring in the New Year. All of our kids made it to midnight this year except for Taryn - playing with friends probably helped with that, but they were so proud nonetheless. It was a great 2015. I actually emailed out a family letter this year and was going to include it in the blog, but it pretty much just hit the highlights of things that I've already posted about. So another year down where we've truly been blessed. We love our family and friends.
