I Love to See the Temple!

I Love to See the Temple!
Of all the places the Gadd Family goes, the temple is the most important. Click on the picture to read one woman's feelings about the temple. Her testimony expresses perfectly the way our own family feels about the temple. We are excited to have one of God's holy houses so close to our own!

December 27, 2010

The Best Christmas

This Christmas was one of the best for our family.
We always miss our family that is far away, but every now and then it is great to just focus on your own little family. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with absolutely no one but each other and nowhere to rush off to. It was so relaxing and we had so much fun!
The tree after Santa came about 1:30 am.
Our tree looked a little sad by the end of season. This year I didn't worry about keeping up with everything the little ones took off or put on. It was gorgeous on day one, but not nearly as loved.

Mags with her IPod on Christmas morning.

Chillin' with Dad, a candy cane, and a Lightning McQueen phone.
Cooper loved opening presents! The first present under the tree this year was for Cooper from his sisters. It was wrapped in tissue paper and then put in a cellophane bag. Also in the cellophane bag was candy! Cooper tried to get that candy out of the bag for 3 weeks. When we opened that gift (a baseball mitt & ball) he tossed it aside and started tearing into the candy. We were all laughing. What a cutie!


Mar, also with a candy cane and a phone. I'm assuming she's "calling" Nana. Calling Nana is always at the top of Marlee's list.

Marlee's favorite spot, Dad's lap.
Santa brought Marlee the Tinkerbell movie and Maggie & Cooper got her Fawn (the animal fairy) Barbie doll. I love watching the kids open their presents from each other. The one giving is always so excited to see the receiver's reaction. They just know they've given them the perfect gift.

Cora with her guitar that Mom & Dad have already busted. Oops!
Why is she dressed you ask? After trying to get us to open presents at 2:00 am & again at 4:30, as soon as she heard Cooper wake up at 6:30 she got up, got dressed and said "I'm ready to open presents now."
New jammie pants! She thinks the monkey on a cell phone is pretty cool.


Traditional Gadd family breakfast.
Aebleskivers!
This Christmas morning tradition was one of Grandma Neen's. (Kevin's mom)
This year we had Aeblskivers, a delicious egg casserole, and fruit.
It was so yummy! And the best part was everyone ate so much candy all morning we didn't have breakfast until noon!
Not pictured in this post - Mom!
I'm hoping now that Kevin bought me a new fancy camera he'll feel like taking a few pictures with it. I'm sure everyone is beginning to think the Gadd family consists of 4 children, a single dad, and a live-in picture taker!


3 comments:

Cydney Jensen said...

I am the live in picture taker too! But I don't mind right now, because I am gigantically pregnant and feel/look terrible! Our family has always loved to do Aebleskivers but usually did it for conference weekend, or Easter when we would have the entire Smith family at my aunts house. We also loved our relaxed stay at home Christmas! Merry Christmas!

Lauri said...

The picture taker in the family is always the mom, she doesn't want to miss anything! Seriously I didn't realize how bad it is until we were getting pictures ready for wedding videos and I realized how much I wasn't in pictures. I challenged all of my son-in-laws to take pictures of their wife and children for that very reason, except Ken and I just told him when I was in Kansas City.

Becky said...

Glad you had a great Christmas- there definitely is something to say for having it be just at home with no extra relatives. I also loved seeing the picture of the Ableskivers- - so many thoughts of Janine!

Oh- by the way, your tree still looked pretty good, even though it had been "loved". Our tree went through a similar experience this year- pretty much no ornaments or decorations lasted from the base to three feet up!