Just a few Christmas memories

Our Christmas holidays were very blessed with lots of family memories and fun. Our Christmas Eve festivities started out at Brendan's parents for his mom's famous Chimichangas. We got to be there when his parents opened up their gift from all of their kids which happened to be a new Mac computer and monitor this year. A much needed and deserved present for them.

From there we headed off to my brother Ed's in Cedar Hills. We're glad that Carlos, Julie, Gavin, and Taylor were able to come up from California to be with us and make our family complete this year. We played our traditional White Elephant game and the money game. Nicole was the big winner of that!

We spent some time in their music room listening to Noah and Brendan play Christmas songs on the piano while the rest of us sang. I was surprised that we actually sounded good and in tune. Kind of a hard thing for the Sanches clan to do. It must have been the help of Maria, Brendan, and Nicole's vocal talents. We enjoyed another feast of Honey Baked Ham, yams, That Good Salad, homemade rolls, and Martinellis. We watched a video on the birth of Christ put out by the Church a few years ago. We then opened gifts from one another and the kids had fun playing with their new toys.

The oldest and youngest cousin... Ryder will be 2 1/2 when Jordan gets home from his mission.

Me and my brothers and Mom. Love them all so much!

We're thankful to have had my mom and dad back with us this year after 18 months serving their mission in Colombia.

Maria made my mom and I these beautiful aprons!

Jake and Noah took a test run of their new sleds out back and down the steep driveway! We all went to bed around 2 am.

Christmas morning didn't start until 11 am at our house. I woke up around 8 and expected Jake or Allison to come in at any minute. 9:00 rolled around and I got out of bed and decided to shower and get ready. Brendan got up around 9:30 and we made our bed, read our books, and sat and waited until Allison peeked in our room around 11. Sheesh!!! I never thought they'd get up. We went into Jake's room and he was beginning to stir. I ended up having to jump on top of Jordan to get him to wake up. Not quite the same having sleepy teenagers in the house compared to eager little kids that are up when it's still dark outside.

Some of our favorite things we received this year were:

Brendan: His Kindle for reading electronic books (I think it's his favorite gift ever!)

Leslie: A 3 inch memory foam mattress topper and a porcelain of Christ hugging a little boy from my mom to represent His watchful care of my little boy this coming year on his mission.

Jordan: New scriptures, ties and more ties, a journal, mission backpack full of supplies and a new digital camera

Jake: New grips on his golf clubs, a golf caddy, and a golf game for our Wii. Ya, he loves golf!

Allison: A big makeup bag full of nailpolish in all colors of the rainbow and a collection of new games to play with friends.

Brendan and I got caught up doing our Christmas week puzzle and finished it in 1 1/2 days.

It was a wonderful couple of days spent entirely with family and we're thankful for our many blessings we have received this year.