Christmas:Guymon Style!

I am so out of the blogging loop and way behind since I haven't blogged for so long! I thought I would just give you a little (okay, not so little!) tour of our holiday travels and celebrations:

Our Christmas Tree!!!

This was a HUGE deal at our house because this is the first time in our married life that we have had a normal sized Christmas tree - we usually have done them in miniature since we haven't had a lot of space. I never thought I would get a fake tree, but since we were leaving town in the middle of the month, I decided the $35 Wlamart special was the way to go!

(I'll admit though, I'm lovin' the pre-lite tree!)

The tree was beautiful - I took a ton of pictures - I just couldn't get enough of it!

Christmas Morning at the Henke house!!

We started a new Christmas morning tradition that Bryan had read about in the Ensign, and it was really neat. Throughout the weeks leading up to Christmas we each thought of things we were grateful for and we wrote them down on slips of paper and put them in a box. Then on Christmas Morning we read all of the things we were grateful for and then read the Nativity Story from Luke Chapter 2. It was a neat experience, a great way to start off the morning, and definitely something we will continue to do!

After the morning at my parents we headed to my Grandparent Henke's house for opening presents with a 3/4 of my Henke family cousins- that was fun and you should have seen the sea of wrapping paper by the time we were finished!!

Christmas Lights at Temple Square:
One of our favorite traditions at Christmas! This year we got the whole family in on the trip, the Guymons and the Henkes!

Bryan and I - we've gone to see the lights every year since we were engaged, with the exception of last year when our trip down there got snowed out.


My brother Todd and his wife Elaine - I was just so happy to see them together again after they were apart for the last five months while Todd worked in AK and Elaine went to school in UT.
YAY for being back together!!!!

Henke Sisters on Christmas!!
Awwww...CUTE!

Dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Larsen's:
Love these precious pictures of my kids with my grandparents!

Grace loves to gives Nosies!!

Guymon Family Christmas Party!!

Guymon Family Christmas Morning tradition -

yummy Cinnamon Rolls made by Bryan's mom!

Grace was cheesing it up for Grandpa Guymon :)

Target Practice with Nerf Dart guns!

Just a cute picture of our niece Jenna :)

Guymon grandchildren acting out the Nativity Story - this was so cute!!

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for starting this new tradition!

Joshua was Joseph and Grace was an angel.

And Story time with Grandma!

Don't they all look so cozy?!

I love this picture!

This is what happens when 9 of your 12 grandchildren are under the age of 5!!

Partying with the Odells!

After the Christmas celebrations were over,

we headed home for a few days and then New Year's day we took off for Dallas to go see our friends the Odells. They are our good friends from law school and they were blessing their sweet baby boy, Wesley. We were so glad to spend the weekend with them and to meet Wesley!

This is Wesley - handsome little man, isn't he?
And this next picture is of Wesley and his proud big sister Claire!

Whew, that was a lot! I will try to get back on track with my blogging so you don't have to go through picture overload again! :)

We sure enjoyed the trips though -

we just can't pass up an opportunity to see our family and good friends.

Thanks to everyone who made this a wonderful and memorable holiday season!