On the twenty-second and twenty-third day of Christmas . . .

. . . who has time to blog?!

On the twenty-first day of Christmas . . .

. . . we started our Christmas celebrating.

Because the kids are going different directions for Christmas

we opened our presents while we were all together. Not too long ago Mya was struggling to stand up . . .

but tonight she was so proud of herself that she can stand on the presents! Ta da!!

Aunt Emily gave her nieces and nephews adorable "p-geez" (as Thomas calls them).

Feel the love!

On the twentieth day of Christmas . . .

. . . the 'tute was the place to be to celebrate Christmas with the extended family. Even though it didn't work to get the bowl game to show on the big screen, it was great to see everyone! The winner of the Dunford Roots fantasy football leage was announced -- Brad in Ohio. So Aunt Barbara accepted the trophy in his behalf. It's a beauty. It was fun for me to have the four grandkids together. They had lots of fun playing with each other and all of the other cousins. We missed those who couldn't be there this year.

On the nineteenth day of Christmas . . .

. . . we were supposed to go to the institute council party in Provo but it snowed & blew & snowed so we stayed home and had our own party with Jeremy & Jamie and Chris & Melissa and the kids. My favorite kind of party!

On the eighteenth day of Christmas . . .

. . . the secretaries trapsed through the snow for our yearly Christmas card picture -- a truckload of angels. I am so blessed to work with such great ladies.

On the seventeenth day of Christmas . . .

. . . the faculty & staff had their annual Christmas lunch and . . .

the always hilarious white elephant exchange.

Kathleen ended up with a beautiful Santa Claus hat and scarf.

The funny thing is that the beautiful pink scarf is monogrammed "Larry".

The Simpsons dolls were a hot item, as was the string of lights with

major award leg lamps from "The Christmas Story".
Bro. Elzey ended up with a bag of goldfish. Unfortunately he used a
knife to open the box and punctured the bag.

This party is always one of the funniest two hours of the whole year.

We laugh so much that our smile muscles are always sore

when the party is over.
Lots of fun!

On the sixteenth day of Christmas . . .

. . . Janene Wolsey Baadsgaard, the author of hundreds of newspaper columns and features, magazine articles and over a dozen books, spoke to the secretaries of the seminaries & institute from Orem to Nephi at our monthly inservice meeting. So good!

And congratulations to Barbara on her new granddaughter, Allison, born today to Diane and Brian. Yea!