Christmas Eve

Great family time this year with all of our children including Anne’s parents Gerry and Carol Bogue along with Alan’s parents and his sister Diane.  A houseful of family to celebrate Christ’s birth together. We had dinner and then enjoyed watching the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Broadcast with Alfie Boe, that amazing Tenor you all know I love.

 

Christmas Morning

After sleeping together in the basement, all the kids head up for Christmas Morning. We check out our stockings, eat a yummy breakfast and then open presents. Fun.

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Christmas with Kenyon

Of course any Christmas morning is more fun with little kids. Kenyon wasn’t quite old enough to enjoy it too much, but we enjoyed having fun with him…from Christmas clothes, to toys, to stroller rides.

We have so much to be grateful for…I love Thanksgiving time. We spent Thanksgiving Day at my brother Matt’s house with my side of the family – oh so so many Morgans. I think there were 35 of us in all…very fun…but no pictures.

Loren  and family were in Idaho with Anne’s parents and Tess was in Arizona for her best friend’s wedding. So the following Sunday, we had a 2nd Thanksgiving dinner with just our family – safely returned from out of state. We invited Alan’s parents, but only Grandpa was able to come as Grandma had become ill and was still in the hospital – we missed her, but did send her a plate of leftovers!

I live in Thanksgiving daily that Alan and I have come from such wonderful families and that together, we have been blessed with our own wonderful family.

We are so glad the kids are willing to traipse around 5 or 6 cemeteries every year. We enjoy cleaning up the graves, placing flowers and remembering our great heritage. This year Alan is busy trying to get GPS locations for as many grave sites as he can.  What an awesome help for those doing family history work. Along with our own family history work, our family has decided to take the Church up on their request for help with indexing the 1940 US Census – it is a great activity for FHE or Sunday afternoons. Try it, you’ll like it!

This year we were invited to Alan’s parents for Thanksgiving dinner.  We brought the rolls and the pies and they did everything else including smoking the turkey!  It was a nice relaxed afternoon filled with good smells and good food.

Every Halloween, while most kids are trying to decide what to “be” for Halloween, the big question at our house is, “What am I going to carve on my pumpkin?”  This question has to be considered usually a good week or so in advance of the pumpkin purchase, because after all, how do you know what size and shape pumpkin to get unless you have your plan, right?  We are starting to get a reputation as the house with the cool pumpkins!

Almost as an afterthought, about an hour before going out with their friends, my kids start thinking seriously about their costumes. My job is to take the kids pumpkin shopping, make hot dog mummies for dinner and take the pictures.  Oh, and trick or treat all the little kids and the not so little kids that come to the door.