CHRISTMAS 2008

Christmas 2008 has come and gone. What a great Christmas the Good Gomer Family had. We celebrated Christmas Eve on the 23rd this year and Christmas Day on the 24th. On our Christmas Eve we had our own little party with just our kids and they opened their traditional new jammies. Christmas morning on the 24th we woke up at 7 am and the kids opened their gifts from Santa. I think they were all a little spoiled this year even though they probably wouldn't agree with that.

The boys favorite thing this year were their new trick bikes. Their old bikes got stollen off our front porch a few months back, so they were more than excited to get new ones.

Taylir was probably the most excited this year because she has been begging, and begging, and begging FOREVER for a cell phone. We finally caved in and let her have one. (I mean Santa did! :))

Kylie's favorite gift was her Bamboo Fun computer graphics program. She loves to draw and doodle and has been wanting this for months!

At noon all the older kids came home for Christmas lunch and to open all our family gifts. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed watching Will open his presents for his first Christmas.Look at the size of this babe!!! We had to get a picture with his clothes off so we could get a pic of his chub rolls!! Isn't he just the cutest?!?!

After our little family party, the kids all left to go have yet another Christmas with their other parents on the actual Christmas Eve/Christmas morning. Some people think this is so sad that Mark and I were going to spend Christmas without any kids, but we were actually okay with the whole thing. We don't get to spend much time alone together anymore since he started working in Oregon and commuting back and forth so we were looking forward to some alone time, even if it was Christmas. Our whole family agreed that having Christmas a day early was pretty great and they want to make this a tradition every other year from now on.

Christmas morning Mark and I slept late and then got up and had our own little Christmas. It had snowed about 8 inches during the night to add to the already 12 inches or so already there from the last storm, so we spent the later part of the morning shoveling the driveway and sidewalks. In no time, the kids all returned from having Christmas and we packed up the truck to head to the family party at Kris and Steve's house. This was a lot of fun with good food, good company and MORE PRESENTS!

I had to add this one picture of Jax the cat. He was having so much fun at the party too and slept like this through it.

This morning Mark and I got to attend a special event for my nephew Brady. He is going on an LDS Church mission to Atlanta Georgia and we were able to attend the temple with him for the first time. It was so neat to see him there and to know that he is taking the next two years to dedicate to the Lord and sharing the gospel with the people of Georgia. We are so proud of you Brady! His farewell is this Sunday and I'll have to get some pictures from that and post.

When we came home from the temple, me and Taylir cleaned up Christmas and took down the decorations and dead tree. I get really antsy to clean-up after the hoildays and didn't make it too far past Christmas this year. But our tree was so dead and the pine needles were becoming too much for me! Even my scentsy candle warmers are done with Christmas and "Crisp Linen" is warming in the trays now instead of some holiday scent. We took the kids to see the movie "Bedtime Stories" tonight (GREAT movie!) and on the way home Mark could see all the trees lit up in the houses on our drive home and commented how sad it was that he couldn't go home to enjoy his tree because his wife had taken ours down already. He can build a fire though and enjoy the glow from that. He'll be glad it's down in the long run though because I'm spending next week with him in Oregon and won't have time to take the tree or decorations down then. He needs a travel companion for that LONG day spent heading back to Oregon, via Sacramento California. Due to him not getting a flight out of Portland and having to drive all the way to Sacramento to catch a flight, his car is still in CA and he has to get it back to Oregon. What a long travel day that will be, but this time he won't be alone or driving through the night and we're looking forward to the beautiful drive we've heard it is through that stretch of highway.

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and spent some great quality family time together. Now it's time to detoxify from all the junk and focus on getting off the extra poundage from all the yummy Christmas goodies. It's time to say goodbye to 2008 and usher in 2009......HAPPY NEW YEAR!