Christmas Week

Ok, quick tangent, because I'm watching it, and because I love it...Studio C on BYUtv is AWESOME!  They're recording their 4th season right now, so it shouldn't be too much longer until new ones are on again.  If you have watched it, you know how hilarious it is.  If not, you need to watch it.

Now, to what this post is actually about.  Our Christmas week!

The Sunday before Christmas my sister, Tiffany, and her husband, Chase, flew into town.  We went down to my parents' house to make walnut bread.  It was my sister and her husband, my parents, my grandparents, and us.  The recipe is one my great-great-grandparents brought with them from Austria.  It's something we do every year, and its a wonderful tradition.  We make one for each family.  Chase helped us out with ours since it would be hard for them to fly a huge thing of bread home with them.

Tuesday was Christmas Eve, and we spent the day with Neal's family.  We went ice skating in the early afternoon.  I didn't go on the ice, but Neal spent the time helping his nieces, nephews, and cousins skate around.

Ben watching Neal skating and trying to get him to run into the wall again.

Zamboni!!!

After we went to the ice rink we went over to the cemetery and sang Christmas carols for Angela and Grandpa Milligan.  After that we went back to Neal's aunt and uncle's house and had dinner and took some goofy pictures.  After dinner we did a service project.  We made frozen dinners to give to families in one of the wards when they were needed.  After dinner we played "Who, What, Where?"

This little boy LOVES chocolate

 Christmas morning Neal and I opened presents with each other.  He's such a rock star gift giver.  He listens to me throughout the year, and gives me presents at Christmas based on what I say I want throughout the year.  This year he gave me two awesome sets of pink camo pj's, a jewelry box, the new Pioneer Woman cookbook, a Miami Dolphins maternity shirt, and kneepads to use up hunting.  He also later bought me 17 Miracles (I'll explain why later in a minute).  I gave him cologne, Wizard (an awesome card game that we love), Ironman 2 & 3, The Hulk, and a nice set of binoculars.

Funny story: Neal actually also bought me Ironman 2 & 3 as gifts.  We laughed pretty hard when we realized we gave each other the same movies.  So we returned one of the sets, and bought 42 and 17 Miracles instead.

After we opened presents together, we went up to Wellington to have breakfast and open gifts with Neal's family.  Neal's brother and sister-in-law gave us a super cute outfit for our little dude - it's a "Woody" outfit from Toy Story (boots included).  We then headed down to Arvada to eat an early dinner with my extended family, and then back to Firestone to open presents and play games with my family.

(I pretty much failed at taking pictures on Christmas, so sorry, there's no pictures from that day!)

On Thursday, we went down to the temple with my family to do baptisms and confirmations for some of my dad's ancestors.  It was a very special moment when we performed the ordinances for my dad's grandma and grandpa.  The Spirit was incredibly strong.  I felt a very strong connection with my great-great grandma, and couldn't believe how incredible it was to do that service for her.

This was the "normal" picture...Neal decided to kiss my belly.  It was pretty funny.

All in all, we had a pretty incredible Christmas week filled with family, fun, and tradition!