Pre-Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day...

Amy got a cool tea kettle set from Blake for a Christmas present.  She loves herbal tea, especially licorice flavored and peppermint tea!

 Rick was working on a special present for May and Lincoln, so we saw quite a bit of them this week as he came over during the day to work on it in the garage. These little cuties are sure growing fast!

May loves the Raggedy Ann doll that Grandma Stout made for Amy years ago.

 Kelsee made a yummy chocolate Buche de Noel cake for Christmas.  It was yummy indeed!

We hosted the Robert and Kay Stout family Christmas Party this year and were pleased that almost everyone came out to celebrate with us (about 50 people).

We had a big dinner together....

Then did the nativity and sang Christmas Carols.....

 David read the story of Santa Clause that Grandpa Robert T. Stout wrote and illustrated long ago...

Then we played a game with presents from the dollar store.  The presents are all wrapped and put in the middle of the circle.  Each person takes a turn picking a present.  The next person can either take a present that has already been opened, or they can select a new one that is wrapped.  A person's present may be taken twice and then it is considered "safe".  Some of the presents have one dollar or five dollar bills hidden somewhere inside and if that present is taken, you have to give up the money as well.  It is a fun game and everyone went home with something.

Allen got the panda hat.  Fortunately, Lylah loves panda's and she took the gift from him and he was able to choose another...

For Christmas Eve, Eric and Mindy's family came over and we did the nativity and sang Christmas Carols with them...

 Tim and I got to be Mary and Joseph this year!

We had a nice dinner together...

Opened presents, and made decorated sugar cookies for Santa...

 After the Choate's left, we got to talk to Todd for the missionary Christmas call.  It was an absolute highlight of our whole Christmas to hear from him in person.  He looked and sounded so great!!!

His Japanese is amazing!!!

After the call we opened up Christmas pajamas and then it started to SNOW!!!

This year the church has been doing a special "Light the World" 25 days of service inspired by the types of service that the Savior taught.  On one of the days, there was a boy named Aaron Jepson who has autism.  He learned how to communicate through typing when he was 15 years old, the same age as Luke! So Brian decided to teach Luke how to type!!!

He made a chart with words that Luke likes and Luke imitated typing out the spelling of the words.  He did fantastic!!! 

The next day was Christmas.  David had Christmas with us, Brian and Chloe came over early in the morning and we opened presents.  Chloe gave Brian the entire book of Mormon typed out onto one single page.  Pretty neat!!!

We had a big breakfast of ham and Swiss cheese omelets, bacon, waffles with blueberries, bananas and real whipped cream and then played a game of Rummikub and set up the marble obstacle course that Luke got for Christmas.  Then Brian and Chloe had to leave to go to the Bakers, and Rick and Kelsee came over.  We opened presents with them and the kids played on the sled we got them for a present.

Funny thing this year, when everyone asked what I wanted, I said, "oven mitts" because we really didn't have very many.  On Christmas Eve, I opened my gift from Mindy and Eric and among other things, there were oven mitts!  The next day I opened my gift from Brian and Chloe and among other things there were oven mitts.  Then I opened my gift from Amy and while I was opening it she said, "You are going to think that this one is kind of funny." Sure enough, it was oven mitts-Ha, Ha!  It turned out fine because I cook and bake a lot and we really did need them for oven mitts and for hot pads. Hooray!!!

It was a very Merry Christmas 2017!!!