More Than You Wanted to Know Holiday Blog

It all started with this tree...

THE HOLIDAYS... this will be a LONG reflection on the Williams Fam 5's 2008 holiday festivities. So get a cup of hot cocoa and a blankie and enjoy reading about our family's fun. Other than our tree falling over TWICE, we had an absolutely pleasant month of December.

Brooklyn won 2nd place for all the 3rd graders in Boise in the Annual Festival of Trees art contest. Her drawing of "Red Holiday" the dog won the judges over.

Then came our yearly date with our tripod and camera for Christmas Card Family Pictures. First we tried taking the picture in front of our house with the dog. THAT DIDN'T WORK- Too dark and too crazy. We headed in the house and tried to get an "under the tree shot". After about 2 hours of saying "SMILE!", "LOOK AT THE CAMERA!", "DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE CAMERA IS?! LOOK AT IT THIS TIME!" we gave up and decided that one of our attempts would have to suffice. Many of you may have received a card with the second of these photos on it, but I thought it would be worth it to show you the photo that best depicts the experience too.

How we felt after taking pictures for 2 hours.

The picture we sent out to make it look like we are a peaceful, lovely family.

Before school was out, Ian was the cutest Christmas Elf ever in their school program and Brooklyn sang her heart out as a "winter weather child" in
Meltin the Warm Hearted Snowman.
One of the most rewarding experiences for me as a mom this year was to watch my kids in their Christmas programs at school and church. It was about 100 degrees in the over-crowded school gym, with claustrophobia looming in the air. In file the children through the parents and grandparents with their video cameras perched. It was one of the most uncomfortable and best shows I have ever seen. It reminded me of when I was 13 and my dad took Elliott and me to a Bob Dylan concert. It was so crowded that there was no line between bodies, no personal space, but it was an experience I will never forget.

Next came our ward Christmas party. I was in charge of the music program and took the opportunity to perform my aunt Cori's song Heavenly Choirs with the Primary kids. I also roped my dad into singing Oh Holy Night with me, as a duet. Everyone in the ward, and visitors loved the show and I loved doing it. Today one of the Primary kids told me that Heavenly Choirs is his favorite primary song. (I did tell him that it isn't technically a primary song, but it's my favorite too.) All the kids dressed in white and were an angel choir along side of our stable scene. Here are MY angels.

Gymnastics doesn't take a holiday, so we also attended Brooklyn's second meet of the year. She did great and was so excited to have her new "league leotard" and a scrunchie for her hair!

Immediately after the gymnastic meet we headed up to the Williams family cabin in Smiths Ferry (south of Cascade, ID). We all love going to the cabin. It is definately one of the perks of being a Williams. Here are a few shots of us sledding and playing in the snow. We spend our days up there snowmobiling, snowboarding, sledding and making snow angels. And, of course,
playing with our new puppy...

Our evenings at the cabin are spent eating cookies and other yummy foods and watching movies. It really doesn't get much better than a day or two up there.

One of Aaron's "crazy coupon deals" - Pre made cookie dough. YUM.

Along came Christmas Eve...
Due to the fact that we are abundantly blessed with families to spend the holidays, we have made it a tradition to hang out with Pappy and Nonny on Christmas Eve, and split Christmas among our little family, Santa, Aaron's family and my mom and Stoy. So to begin our annual Christmas marathon we ate well and got to get into the fat man's sack. And that was even BEFORE Santa came!

We have a situation in our home...the kids' rooms are downstairs, and Aaron's and mine is on the main floor. The fire place is in-between the two. So to prevent the children from seeing Santa's loot before Aaron and I were up, I wrapped the staircase with Christmas paper and blocked the kids from coming up the stairs. I warned them the night before that it would be sealed, and they would have to sing Christmas carols for me and Dad to let them upstairs. So at 5:43 a.m. we were awoken to the sweet sound of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". Priceless! Santa brought us a Nintendo Wii, so we spent the rest of the morning (and almost all free time since) playing the Wii.

Thanks to Grandma & Grandpa Williams for these sweet snowboarding goggles!

We ate at Grandma Susie's and Grandpa Stoy's house. YUMMY! There is no better place to get delicious food than the Stoy house!


We rang in the New Year at our house with friends and our new ROCK BAND 2 game (thanks mom). Lucas fell asleep around 10:00 pm at Aaron's feet with the music blasting, but Ian and Brooklyn stayed up for their first time until after midnight. We went out front and set off fireworks and were just as loud and obnoxious as the neighbors have become accustomed to us sounding in the day time.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

WELCOME 2009!