Christmas at our house this year was awesome! Jenn's family came from Utah and Tommy and Nicole came down from Portland. Sadly, Mom and Dad didn't get to come home and they were very missed! On Christmas Eve, we kept up with our family tradition and headed to Papa's Pizza for dinner. It was nice to know that we didn't have to cook a big dinner at home (considering there were 18 people staying the night on Christmas Eve) that we would have to clean up after. The kids got to play and have fun while us adults got to relax and eat some yummy pizza! After that we came home to open our Christmas Eve gifts! Each year our family opens one gift on Christmas Eve and it's always new pajamas...cause we don't want to be in old pj's when Santa comes! :-)

This is Ryan getting his jammies on.

Uncle Timmy and Ryan in their new Christmas jammies!!

Christmas morning was wonderful! It was a blast to get to watch the kids open their presents and have so much fun with their new things!

All of the kids, 18 and under, waiting on the stairs to come and see what Santa brought for them!

Ryan's Santa gift. Santa knew how much Ryan loves to go hiking with his daddy so he brought him a Lightning McQueen tent, hiking backpack, sleeping bag and water bottle set!

This is Ryan sitting in his tent looking at what he got in his stocking. He spent most of the morning sitting in there! LOL!

When Jenn got here, she was reading a book called "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer. I had heard a lot about this book so she was almost done reading it and when she finished I started it. She brought the second book "New Moon" with her also. So as I started the first one, she started the second. We finished close to the same time (in about 10 hours) so I started the second one. I finished the second one on Christmas Day and luckily we both have wonderful husbands who only occasionally hate our reading obsession and they got us the third book "Eclipse" for our Christmas presents! Although I finished all three books in about five days, I'm excited to go pick up the first and second ones (selfish Jenn took them home with her!) and reread them! They are really amazing books, and even written by an LDS author! We even got Nicole hooked on them too! We would have roped in Jessica, but she was too wrapped up with her Pillars of the Earth sequel book to get involved. :-) So if you are looking for a really good set of books to read...definitely pick these up! The fourth book doesn't come out until August, so I'm going to have to find something to do to keep myself busy until then! :-)

As crazy as our house was with everyone here, it now feels so empty that everyone is gone. Tommy and Nicole had to take off after Christmas dinner and Jenn and Nate's family had to leave today. They took Timmy with them to spend some time with our Cousin Jeff in Idaho and work on baseball stuff during winter break. It's hard to imagine that a house that still has 8 people living in it can feel empty, but it does.

I had my third doctor's appt on Thursday. Everything is still going good. We got to hear the baby's heartbeat again and Dr. Cooper said that hopefully the horrible pains that have been plaguing me since the beginning will soon go away. I did get to schedule my BIG ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby!! We are really excited! January 16th will be the big day! I got the earliest appt at 8am so I don't have to wait all day! :-) We will be happy either way but keep your fingers crossed for me that I'll get a little princess! :-)

Okay Ryan is patiently waiting for me upstairs for prayer so I'll go now. I hope you all enjoyed this little update!