We had the perfect Christmas. We left early Sunday morning, the 23rd, to arrive in Vegas in time for Michelle and Brian's 9:00 am church meeting. Brian is the ward choir director and we wanted Michelle to be able to sing in the choir, which she couldn't do unless we came to tend the kids during the meeting. Before this last fall, this ward didn't have a choir at all, and Brian has really put together a wonderful choir. They were really, really good and the program was so nice.The pictures and video were taken during the pre-sacrament meeting rehearsal.
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| That's Michelle, and our Gabbi on the other end. |
This is a little clip of one of the songs.
On Saturday, Brian got a text from a sister
that was going to sing a whole song solo in the program, saying that she was losing her voice. So Michelle ran through the song on Saturday with Brian playing, but didn’t know until five minutes before
the 9 am start of sacrament meeting whether she would be singing it. The sister decided she couldn’t, so Michelle
was on, never having practiced it with the accompanist. We had some excitement caring for the kids: crying, a poopy diaper, etc, but I got back into the meeting just in time for one of the highlights of my life. Michelle
stood up to sing that beautiful solo.
She totally nailed it. It was
just flawless and gorgeous. . The spirit just descended in that chapel. There were many people there that usually didn't come to church, come to celebrate Christmas. The chapel was packed. I looked around and so many were wiping their
eyes. The spirit was powerful. We felt so grateful we were there.
That afternoon, we got our Christmas ham dinner ready. Ken and I always work together to make apple pie. He peels, cuts, and cores the apples. We brought our machine and the kids loved helping prepare the apples.
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| Little William LOVES the book "Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?" He finishes the rhyming phrases. I wonder how many times we read that book to him over the few days that we were there? |
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| Kenny loves building marble runs. He sends the marbles down and then jumps up and down while they go down. |
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| Brian and Michelle dancing in the kitchen. |
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| Even a dip. |
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| Our delicious ham Christmas dinner. |
They
had many visitors that evening delivering Christmas gifts. Princes had delivered theirs earlier- Muffin
mix with THE cutest song that Michelle wrote. "You’re gettin
muffins for Christmas," etc. It was
cute! Kenny would stand in the front and
jump up and down while he sang. He knew
every word. This is a kind of crazy recording of the song. The kids were wound up, but you get the idea:
On Monday, we helped finish up Christmas presents. I helped Gabbi make this gift for her daddy.
In the afternoon, we went to a local park and played softball. It was so much fun. Everyone, even Grandma got a hit! Well I guess William didn't, but he had an ear to ear grin the whole time as he ran around the field. Only in Vegas can you play softball on Christmas eve! What a fun time we had- reminiscent of the Hinton family reunion ball games where the score always ends in a tie!
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| Gabbi and Jaron showed off their monkey bar skills, too. |
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| We then picked up ramen from a ramen shop for dinner. I had ramen and sushi. It was absolutely delicious and took us back to our Japan days. Michelle and Brian had found this shop and thought it would be a fun treat for us, and it was. |
After dinner, we acted out the Christmas pageant. Brian was narrator, I was photographer, Grandpa is always the donkey. Gabbi was Mary, Jaron, Joseph, Michelle was an angel and Kenny was Moses. Every pageant needs a Moses don't you think? When asked who he wanted to be, he insisted on Moses.
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| Peanut blossom cookies for treats |
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| Then each child opened one package- their Christmas jammies. |
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| Then we watched "the Piano Guys" video of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. There was such a sweet spirit in that home as we celebrated the true meaning of Christmas. We were so blessed to be there. |
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| Two blessed and happy grandparents |
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| The stockings were hung by the entertainment center with care . . . |
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| And cookies and milk left out for Santa |
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| While parents put kids to bed, an elf got busy in the garage assembling our gifts for the kids. |
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| After we went to bed, Michelle and Brian set the table for the next morning and finished preparations. |
Christmas morning
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| Christmas morning we all met in Michelle and Brian's room for family prayer |
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| Then filed down to see what Santa brought. |
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| The kids asked for a pet. They got caterpillars! Santa is so smart! |
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| Christmas breakfast was delicious: eggs, bacon, sausage, scones, and orange julius |
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| His first ever scone. I think he likes it! |
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| Making orange julius |
Then more present opening.
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| Opening a grand gift (pun intended) |
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| All 14 grandchildren. |
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| And here it is hanging on our wall at home. |
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| ziggles |
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| Nail painting |
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| William's new ride |
It truly was the perfect Christmas. Michelle and Brian treated us like royalty. We had a stocking waiting for us on Christmas morning, full of all many of our favorite things, besides wonderful gifts.
We had to leave that afternoon so Ken could be back to work in the temple early the next morning. Merry Christmas!!!!
1 comment:
What a fabulous Christmas, Kay! I loved seeing all of the darling pics of the kids. And I would have loved to hear Michelle sing the solo. The choir number that Brian was leading was pretty! Isn't it fun to be in our kids' homes on holidays and enjoy it with the grandkids? It's the best!
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