Merry Christmas!!!

I don't even know how to blog the last few weeks.  It was busy.  And busy is good.  But then it got hectic, and crazy, and I'm not sure if I was able to enjoy it.  Note to self, schedule in a few less things.  Then when your niece gets married, or you need to help a friend whose apartment has been robbed while they are out of town, or help a friend whose basement is flooding on Christmas day, or when you LOSE YOUR PURSE and spend a day panicking, (or all of the above) it is all okay.  I made it through this holiday, but just barely.

But, here are the awesome things that happened this year.  (Let's focus on those.) 

--This should probably be a bunch of separate blog posts, but instead it's coming at you the way it came at me...fast and furious!

Last Sunday night was the umpteenth annual carolling party.  Here are the original kids from the party.  It started when Clark was a baby, with Sylvia, one of the original moms.  This is likely her last year with us, so we went to carol to her.  Lots of wet eyes in the Butterfield house.    

Here are the original parents of the group that were well enough to be there.  Missing were the Rathburns and Chambers.
I spent Monday frosting cookies, cleaning that up and then making gingerbread houses.  One of my favorite traditions, but OH SO Messy!

Tuesday was the short-awaited wedding of my niece Paige.  (Short-awaited because they got engaged 6 weeks before the wedding.)  My kids have already had multiple lectures about how they are FIRED if they do this to me.  But everyone held it together and the wedding went well.  

Paige's husband has a sister my girls' age.  They are so excited to have each other!

There was a fair amount of down time, thank you iphones for helping occupy the children!

One of our favorite of Derek's cousins, Fran, came up to hang out with us (and be one of the bridesmaids).  LOVE her!

Maren and Benny before the reception.  

The 23rd was STAR WARS day!  It was such a fun movie!  The only problem was that as I was heading to the movie, I had a thought that I should not take my purse, that I would forget it.  Ignored the thought, took the purse.  Spent the entire day on Christmas EVE panicking, and trying to find my purse.  Finally a theater employee went and looked in the spot where we had been sitting.  It was tucked behind the chair in front of mine.  When she called me to say that she found it, BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER!

For dinner we wanted something fun--something not so common in Utah.  Korean BBQ!  It was super yummy.  Very restless kids by the end, but it was good!

During my search for the purse, I couldn't remember if I was wearing it in the restaurant.  Should have looked at this picture.  Not there...

Christmas EVE!  Once the purse was found (at like 4 pm) I could finally focus on the party that started at 4:30.  So not much time.  Luckily I had most of the games ready.  The costumes were a bit lacking.  I'm going to work on that this year.  Need to gather up a bin of nativity costumes!

Shepherds

Wise Men

The whole crew.  We had the Barber family from church with us.  Thankfully Brittain also plays the piano!

Silent night in Japanese!

Twas the Night Before Christmas

Clark was the winner of this Reindeer ring toss (for failing at the Christmas Carol guessing game...)

I told the kids that Santa might come on Christmas EVE again since Daddy had to work on Christmas Day.  Libby said, "Maybe Grandma Geneva could forget our pajamas again this year and we could go and get them?  That would be a great diversion!"  And it was!  (Genius idea Libby!)

Christmas "brunch"/lunch.  Ben loves his new PJs, except they are so big the pants kept falling down.  Hilarious.  

Sarah and her "twin" cousin Emma.  

Clark and his girlfriend Anne Marie.  I'm a big fan.   

Derek and Sarah.  Stronger EVERY Day!

Most of the crew.  Paige and Paul had already left to have family pics with his family.  And you can only see Geneva's back...but we are there!  

On the way home from Christmas lunch, we got the message that a family in the ward had a basement flooding.  So we went over there to help.  By the time we got home I had no juice to get them to gather their gifts for a pic.  So, there will be no way to solve the bet about which gifts came on which year.  But I had them each take a pic with their favorite gift.  Sarah: ukulele, and her clothes too.  

Ben:  Spiderman Lego Junior set (although he was pretty darn excited about the electric shark that can swim in the bath with him, the potato head super heroes, and everything he got).  

Libby:  Sarah's ukulele I guess.  She got some sculpey and duct tape to craft with.  Also both girls got an American Girl (knock off) scooter.  We will see what they end up actually playing with...

Sarah already beat me in Battleship.  Bad news.  

Derek has already constructed the Lego sets Santa brought.  He hates home projects.  Loves lego projects.  How can I made home projects seem more like building with Legos?
Until 2016, Love from the Norton home!