'Tis the Season

Christmas is always my favorite time of year! We are blessed to be able to see all three of our families for the holidays. Sometimes this gets really busy and can make things crazy and a little stressful. This year things worked out perfectly though. We went down to Nephi to spend Christmas Eve with Gustavo's dad, Liz, and Isaac. While we were there we played our traditional unwrapping game that Yolanda always puts together. We were very pleased that everyone played, including Gustavo's dad. I am happy to report that I won the 5 dollar prize. After playing we had a delicious ham dinner and opened presents. It was a great night without any stress and Ella was WONDERFUL. Usually this isn't the case so it was perfect. She even let grandma Liz and uncle Laz hold her.

Christmas morning we got to have our own little Christmas (this is only the second time we've been able to do this since Gustavo and I got married- all the traveling from house to house usually doesn't leave us any time.) Ella was about as excited as we imagined; she crawled around and danced when she heard the music from her xylophone. She loves music and so we thought this would be a great gift. I had to help her open the two gifts we got her (a toothbrush and the xylophone). I thought she would love the tissue paper, but she just wanted to touch the shiny bag and take off bows. We made our way down to Provo at about 10:30 for our traditional brunch with my family. This year my parents got a karaoke machine so we had a blast being crazy and loud while singing along to a Disney cd (Hannah Montana, High School Musical, and Camp Rock songs) and classic rock tunes. Fortunately for my sisters' sake I won't post any of the video Gustavo took of the four of us (Meg was in California) singing "Love Shack."

My nieces LOVED singing along to their favorite Camp Rock, HSM, and Hannah Montana songs.Chris and Eva sang "Beat it." Eva is a big Michael Jackson fan.

Ella enjoyed singing and dancing with everyone else.

At around four o'clock we headed down to Spanish Fork for Christmas dinner with Gustavo's mom. It is always so funny to go from my family to his because of the extreme differences: my family is loud and crazy with grandkids running around everywhere while his family is small and all of the attention is directed to Ella and Gabe. It was nice to spend more time with Gustavo's family. We had fun assembling the toys from Abuela and Abuelo and watching the kids play with them. Ella got a little walk and ride and a singing doll that she danced with and gave kisses to.

Overall this year Christmas was great. I felt like we had ample time with each family and were able to really enjoy the holiday without feeling rushed. We love our family so much and feel so blessed to have been able to spend time with everyone, including my sister Megan's family and Gustavo's brother Laz.