Elves and Other Christmas Highlights

We were invited to spend Christmas with the Clarks in Ramstein this year. Jeanette and I had fun in the few months and weeks before Christmas with the preparations -- we made pajama pants and designed T-shirts for everyone which were then specially packaged and delivered by little elves on Christmas Eve.  Such thoughtful elves --  see how festive (and ready to sleep) these kids all look:

Christian LOVES California

 Taylor LOVES college life

Bryant and Ezra LOVE Garmisch!

 (an inside joke after spending six weeks of last summer together there)

You can find Brian in his Christmas PJ attire (down below)

Erin LOVES Brian

(Brian LOVES Erin)

Lissie LOVES dance

Jessica LOVES soccer

Rachel LOVES seminary

The kids all stayed up late to watch movies and listen for Santa.

Tracy and I stayed up late to listen for movies to end (and for Santa, of course).
Around 2:00 a.m. I checked to see if everyone was settled down for the night,

and then around 7:30 a.m. I heard some movement on the stairs . . .

Before I knew it, or had a chance to pull out the camera,
the kids had delved into their stockings
 and found the note from Santa announcing
an upcoming Garmisch ski trip
(Bryant and Ezra were overjoyed, of course)

Here are CLB a few hours later modeling their new ski hats:

Bryant proved his patience and persistence over these past two Christmases -- with his own hard earned money, and the help of sisters and parents and Santa, he finally had all the parts he needed to build his own computer.  Here he is with the final needed part - the processor.  He was anxious to drive home later that day and start putting it all together.  I'm impressed!

Lissie and Erin received some matching items for Christmas this year.  I don't think it was all planned out that way, but it was fun to see them in matching outfits again.

This time it was Christmas pajamas and new H&M coats

Christian is getting ready to serve his mission in California, so Lissie made sure he got some new hipster glasses for his scripture study.  He doesn't wear glasses, but these are just what he will need on his mission, right?

And here we have Lissie and Christian getting ready to share a fun song as we ended our Christmas morning festivities.  I will try to post a video too.  Christian asked everyone not to laugh as he brought out his best base voice for "Baby, It's Cold Outside."

As we celebrated Christmas this year, it was so nice to be with family and friends 

and make special memories together. 

Merry Christmas, Everyone!