Christmas Day

Merry Christmas! It was a happy day. Kids playing with Katharine and enjoying time together. 

They enjoyed their sleepover in the front room under the tree. 

They ate the treats in their stockings. After Corey and I got up, Corey gave everyone the letter that Hyrum wrote to them. 

In the letter to Corey, Hyrum let him know that it took him FOREVER to write everyone.

...followed by "You have a lot of kids."

Then it was the moment they'd all been waiting for and they opened gifts from each other. the kids drew names for Secret Santa over Thanksgiving, and it was supposed to be: J - A, M - Eth, E - Wes, W - lily, A - Joseph, L - Mel, S - O, N - S, O - D (Lily help), D - N (Abi help), and P and K did not participate. Ethan didn't buy Wes anything, but I had a gift that I let Ethan pay for and he gave that to Wes - a metal earth SL Temple, which Wes loves. After opening the first present and putting the wrapping in the trash, Natalie jumped up and grabbed it from the trash "Don’t throw that away! That bow is still useful!” Uh oh - she might be her mother's daughter. Two other quotes from today - Corey and people talking about India - “it’s a different world…” Ethan- “There are a lot of different worlds in this world...” haha. Also, Corey warning the children "The more you complain, the more your mother will laugh." Some highlights of the gifts: Sophi gave Wesley a coupon book - 

Some of the coupons will be very helpful. Most of the gifts were just regifting personal items, or someone else's items that they found. 

Joseph put Katharine in his Christmas sweater that he got in a thrift store in Guatemala. She didn't like it.

Mel gave Ethan a poor student discount plan but disguised it as digital Trump cards as a joke. It looked pretty legit that it really was Trump cards, so funny!

He wasn't very excited to get digital Trump trading cards.

Everyone knew what it really was, haha.

We've enjoyed having Ethan's pet fish Sushi here over the break. He's a nice fish. Abi gifted Ethan some of her fish's former belongings, on loan until Sushi dies or Abi gets a fish. 

Then to the side room for more presents. 

Lego sets...

The mission books for JME were a hit. The only problem we realized was that some of Ethan's photos must not have downloaded onto his blog, so there were a few weeks that were missing the photos. I don't know if he'll get it reprinted sometime, but I don't think I'll redo it, unless I give it to him again for Christmas next year. I'll let him decide if he just wants to make do or if he wants to pay for it himself. 

Joseph looking at the photo of him, on the side room tv, wearing the same sweater, just two years ago. 

Peter liked the Spidey and his amazing friends cars that Wesley chose for him at Costco.

At one point, Daniel was crying cause he couldn't carry all his stuff. We were laughing at the first world problem. Joseph went to help him. 

We went to church for just an hour today, for a special musical Christmas program. Sophi and a group of girls sang one of the numbers.

Katharine wore her pjs to church. But with a bow and pearls!

A photo from someone in San Diego who was taking care of Hyrum today. 

It had been an early day for Peter, and he fell asleep during church. 

We went over to Corey's parents house around 1 and enjoyed lunch/dinner over there, visiting, and more gift giving.

Katharine being sweet and beautiful.

Talking to Hyrum!

Playing with more presents. 

Back at home - basking in the Christmas fun explosion. 

Wesley helped Owen build his Ninjago temple lego set, it was pretty cool. It reminded Wesley of Avatar. 

I'm glad I've been able to sneak in some blogging up here (Today is actually 2/26/23 but I truly am grateful I was able to sneak in blogging, yay, I'm almost done with December!) Time for bed soon. Katharine with a tiny bottle of sparkling apple cider that I stole from my parents. Merry Christmas. 

Christmas Eve

Hello, it's just past 4:30 am, I'm about to head to bed and will update this more tomorrow hopefully. Notes I took for myself: 

3:17 am, I was finally able to get away from Katharine. I didn't set an alarm to wake up and set out the gifts, I just knew that, since she just sucks the lifeblood out of me all night, I would be woken up before morning

3:18 - going to officially label the presents with code like Corey does

3:35 - on 8B, Katharine is fussing 

3:41 - K awake, playing on the floor

4:05-  box 1 done, I'm not doing codes anymore, I'm tired and it's stupid

4:20 - stockings done

4:30 - box 2 of stuff out, I'm heading back to bed. Joseph sleeping by the side room tree. He probably heard me but that's ok.

Kids having their annual sleepover under the Christmas tree.

Hello. Merry Christmas. Kids have had a good time but I'll finish writing about yesterday. At 11 o'clock I went to my parents house where we did a zoom call and gave my parents a gift - 

My older sis in Indiana put it all together, shipped it to Beka, and Beka and I were there for the unwrapping. 

It was a blanket with photos of all of us.

My siblings all sending love to each other before we sign off - Giving hearts to each other. It took us a second to have it arranged so that the hearts were all correct on someone's phone - they took a screen shot for the group. For most of us the hearts were messed up, cause the videos were in different orders on each phone. Funny.

During my growing up years, my parents would put us to work at Christmas decorating the trees. There were like 20 trees of different sizes and all sorts of themes. Now things are more simple at the Hibbert household -

We enjoyed time with Corey's family at the annual Wride get together. Grandma had fun new glasses this year!

Family talent show - 

Ethan playing his Synthesis number.

Wes did his ukulele Elvis song (minus the sherwani outfit).

Good stuff. 

Then the saran wrap ball game. Some people had all the luck, and others had no luck at all. 

Peter was one of the no luck rollers. 

Most of the prizes were little toys that only little boys would like anyway, so Peter made out with a lot of loot anyway.

So it was good. Then we all headed home early to try and get kids to bed early and finish the last touch ups for Christmas morning. I still had work, but didn't finish it before bed. Hence my early early morning. My room was clean a few days ago until I started to get Christmas stuff ready and wrapped. Now it's a mess. Katharine was by one of the bins of presents pulling herself up, it looked like she was bouldering!

She pulled herself all the way up!!! 

Katharine, you are a natural climber! You sent it! Woo-hoo! She was so pleased with herself, but then she lost her grip and rolled over onto the floor. Gotta work on her ankle strength. It's so fun seeing them learn new things.