December is always a busy month for everybody. Obviously there was no exceptions at the McKinney household. Wes had a lot of different work parties. The family work party was at Boondocks. We had fun and the kids got to see Santa. Wes had a Detectives division party. It was fun but a little uncomfortable with some of the white elephant gifts and the comments given from the guy who brought the "special fanta drink". He's retiring and moving to Vegas(sorry Kim and Sam) so hopefully next year won't be as bad. Wes also had a nice dinner at Roosters for Wes's Fraternal Order of Police dinner. It was good food and I enjoyed the company at our table-but that was about it. It was really sad for Wes to point out all the officers who were RM's and drinking beer. :( It makes me more grateful for the kind of husband, father, and MAN I have-he's incredible! Hailey had a 2nd grade talent show that she performed a dance to. She did such a great job-I was really proud of her. That is soo scary to get in front of a group of peers by yourself and perform. Our neighbors have an annual Christmas Music Fest. We have Sooo many talent musicians in our area and they invite families to come and perform. Our family isn't those most talented musicians-(understatement) But we sure have fun coming up with a fun idea. This year we waited a little too last minute-the morning of, before church, the performance being after church. Brooklyn and Hailey did their performance to Jingle Bell Rock, so cute. And the boys did a compelation of different styles of dance to Christmas Jingles. Nothing too spectacular, but entertaining and fun. I would post videos but I accidentally erased them. I do have video of them performing at our family party that I might post.
We had Wes's family over for dinner the week before Christmas since Angie and her family were going to be out of town for Christmas. We had ham, dutch oven potatoes, corn, rolls, and dessert.
Ethan loves his Nana.
Cameron is always trying to get one of us to play chess with him. I've been trying to avoid it since he's been winning me lately. :)
Don't let my cute little innocent girls fool you-they can definitely be little rascals.
Yep-that's Zachary's "proud" face. He's actually grown taller than my two nieces Ashley and Monica.
Ryan and Meagan hosted the Smith Family Christmas party. We made candy sleds and raced them down the stairs. Here's a pic of my mom making her sled.(YOu wouldn't beLIEVE who's sled kept winning the races)
Ryan tried to use his genius engineer brain to make a winning sled. Guess which one was his. Too bad he didn't win though. (he he)
This had to be my favorite. Angela and Thomas were quite creative. Thomas was just about to glue Angela's arms that were going to be waving over her head in the Fjelstead Flyer.
Dad was the official gate starter. We had a yummy dinner and played some fun games. It was just nice to hang out with family and cousins getting to play together and of course kissing cute chunky babies.
If anybody has been in my house for the month of December-you KNOW I LOVE to decorate for Christmas. I love the all the sparkly, bright, lights and colors all around the house filled with Christmas music.
The tradition in our family is to have a big dinner on Christmas Eve-I like to relax on Christmas Day. We had Risotto, steak, steamed veggies, salad, and yummy desserts.
Like father-like son. Ethan loves to bond with his daddy.
Our traditional re-enactment of the Nativity Scene. UMMmm-sometimes not as reverent as it should be.
We shared Christmas Eve with Nana and Paw Paw. It was nice and the kids were excited to open an early Christmas present from them.
The kids seeing what Santa left them in their stockings. We had a great Christmas. Spoiled rotten. So grateful for all that we have. I especially got spoiled. My surprise (that the kids kept secret amazingly) was a plane ticket to California to visit some special family members. I was in SHOCK to say the least. Wes was so thoughtful and my kids were so excited. I had a little bit of mixed feelings. Excited but I was looking forward to spending time as a family since Wes had most of the week off and I knew I would miss them. But I had SOOOoooo much fun-I'll post about that later.
This was the girl's favorite present that they got from Santa. They had fun dancing with their new ballerina partners.
The kiddos all ready for in their new Christmas outfits for church. It was a nice sacrament. I sang in the choir a song and then in a quartet-we sang "Christ Child, Christ Child". I was a little worried because we only had one practice together the morning before and I am not familiar with this song but everyone said it sounded nice-there's no way Jesus would let us ruin his Birthday celebration :)Wes gave a really nice talk and the spirit was felt that special Christmas day. I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!!! Hope you all had a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS! WE love you all and are so grateful for this time of year, for family and friends and for the blessings of the gospel and the example and sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ. With Love, Wes, Celeste, Zachary, Cameron, Jonathan, Hailey, Brooklyn, and Ethan.
