It's time for me to finally get here again! I got this started on the 4th - today is actually the 8th. So, for the commentary. We headed to Elko on Christmas Eve - early in the am - like 4:00 early. Kannon wanted to make it in time for breakfast. Basically, I did some fun shopping over the whole weekend. Got some really great deals before and after Christmas. We just had a good Christmas Eve. This is the first round of "Bingo for Prizes". My mother-in-law had a ton of fun prizes for all ages. So, I played too.

This is Christmas Eve dinner. There were 18 of us there for the weekend - this is everyone but Kannon who took the picture. Although 2 of them must have been out of view. Oh well. We also did the gift exchange that night. I stayed up forever. I was so tired. We were waiting for the kids to go to bed. My mil got us a hotel room for two nights, she was taking care of the kids for the night. But, I still wanted to put out the Santa stuff. Anyway, we finally left and went to sleep. Then got up early (5 am) to straighten my hair - I went to bed with it wet, it was scary! I wanted to make sure we didn't miss the kids waking up.

We got Sarah this huge pop-up castle tent - it was a lot bigger than we thought. And this is her cute princess crown - that totally sucked. It doesn't stay on her head at all - came with earrings that broke immediately - at least the ring survived!

And Ben with his long-awaited camera. He had it picked out a long time ago - helped me do a survey about the cameras. This was his favorite.

Then it was breakfast and later the free-fest of unwrapping. I really enjoy taking time to appreciate each gift. But, everyone else felt like it would take too long.

I'm not sure if this was Christmas Day or the day after. The A. kids got sleds and their daddy hooked one up to Daisy, the dog. She loved pulling them around the driveway. Sarah was brave for a few feet, then wanted off. Ben finished her turn.

We also spent a lot of our evenings enjoying our new Wii. We bought it back in October via craigslist - and got a great deal. Then when Kannon had some special money he got the new Guitar Hero for his Santa gift. So, this is Kannon with his brother and sister. I felt like it was harder than Rock Band and the guitar is messed up - you can only strum up. We'll have to get that fixed soon. By the way, I got a great purse for my Santa gift. I haven't had a purse for at least 7 years. I found this miche bag that is so great. You can check it out here http://www.4miche.com

My mil is so great with the kids. At first I was thinking this was a picture of them eating cereal before bed - which is a common idea there. But, then I remembered that they had ice cream sundaes. M-i-l got sick from hers - turns out she used the last of the vanilla that had been microwaved previously. Apparently that's not too good on the tummy. As for my tummy, it wasn't too bad. I actually felt great for one whole day. The rest of the time was so-so.

On that Saturday, Kannon went out with his brothers to shoot guns. He was trying to sight in his brothers shotgun when he got "scoped". He didn't have the butt in his shoulder and the scope smacked him right in the nose. He says it's still pretty sore. I didn't think it ever looked too bad. Healed pretty quickly. I don't think he'll make that mistake again! And I don't know if I'll ever venture to use a gun with a scope either. We'll see.

They ended up cancelling church because of the snow. There were quite a few storms that went through while we were there. We were a little anxious about our drive home, but felt blessed to have perfectly clear roads the whole way.