Christmas Time

So I am blogging by request of Drew. There will be a lot of pictures and since it took a LONG time to load I hope you appreciate it :) We all had a great time down here in Yucca where it wasn't to cold and the rain had finally stopped so we had a beautiful sunny Christmas day. There was a long moment that I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to make it home because constant rain for three days + California roads=lots of road closures. California drivers definitely didn't help any either. But I made it home and we had a great Christmas week!

After decorating shirts we played Pictionary with Jared and the kids, and Barbie, Doug and I simply fell in love with the game and decided we needed to have it so we could play on Christmas day. Unfortunately the Wal-Mart in Yucca didn't have it and with the closure of Gamestop there was no where else that we could go to get it in town, so at 1015 pm Barb, her friend James, and I drove down to Palm Springs where we successfully were able to find the Wii tablet that is needed for pictionary. Of course the Palm Springs Wal-Mart didn't have the actual game and just the tablet so we went back to the Yucca Wal-Mart to get the game. Thank goodness for the craziness of 24 hour stores!! It makes my heart happy.

My excitement over finding the Wii tablet. I just couldn't contain myself...

Barbie, James, and I on the way home from Palm Springs.

The late night craziness that usually accompanies us when we stay up past oh 9:30 pm or so...

Stefanie, James, and Barb outside Wal-Mart

This is the group that came over for Christmas Eve dinner. Michelle, James, Doug, Barbie, Hope, Joseph, Brittany, Grandma A, Stefanie, Grandpa A, and Brittany.

The normal pic of the group-it is just to hard to move the pics around once they have found their home in the blog world so sorry for the out of order. Mom and Dad stayed around for this one.

Since we had visitors, Barbie jumped in and cleaned one of the Potato dumpling pans. Then Joseph cleaned both of the pans. Michelle still had to go over them both and clean off all the extra potato klub so that it wouldn't be hard as a rock next year...

So one of the pics didn't show up, but Joseph was given the job of taking the pots outside and emptying them out. Unfortunately the order was not given with detail so he took a pot that had not been emptied and dumped both pots next to mom's van. We collected the potato dumplings thinking that maybe these would be the ones we sent over to Uncle Gunder's house this year since the slight dirt taste could be attributed to the potato, but Mom decided that that would not be an acceptable plan so we sent Uncle Gunder some of our good ones. This is a pic of the collected dumplings and yes that brown stuff is dirt, not fried areas.

The Clingers with their annual Christmas Eve Carroling. They were one short this year as Johnny is off serving his mission (I think in Texas). They also brought their annual Candy cane bread wrap.

Grandpa waiting for the food to get ready. We said 5 and he was frusturated that it wasn't ready til 5:30 pm. Well we were pretty close to being on time, but the master of potato dumplings decided to go shopping so we had to hold the show until she came home.

Joseph took care of the hams his year as dad was trying really hard to get done stuccoing the back wall of the house and then had the opportunity to help out a member in need so he was in a time crunch.

But he was able to join the fun for the stirring of the pots.

Mom got a little excited and dropped a glass on the floor which shattered. It was really funny (you kinda had to be there) mostly because she had dropped a glass the previous day and then somehow a pyrex baking dish fell on the floor and shattered as well. Mom said that now that her kids are grown there is definitely more things that get broken then when we were little. I think this is mostly because she used to only have plastic ware, but has moved more and more towards glass things in recent years. Needless to say the floor has never been so clean!

Grandma and Stefanie mixing the potato dumplings while Barbie took on the job of Flour distributor. And she did it with such style.

Dad playing the new Scrabble flash game (which is amazing by the way just in case you don't already have it or are looking for a new game).

Sadie, Matthew, and Trinity with their presents from Kim and Drew.

Michelle got a super soft Mickey bathrobe from Trini.

Michelle also got some Mickey pj bottoms from Trin as well!

Opening a family gift of a Wii controller so now the whole family can play together!

The kids opening a family game.

Barb got a set of flashlights and headlamps so that she could play flash light tag with the singles and not lose any of Mom and Dad's flashlights. The LED lights are SUPER bright!

Jared and his Carhart jacket so that he could look like Gibbs from NCIS.

Opening up the gift.

Mom ALL into the pictionary. She drew the winning pic so that the girls could beat the boys.

So I love the new ride at California Adventure called Toy Story Mania-it is the ride that has Mr. Potato head in living color at the entrance. I have been looking for the game for a LONG time and have been unable to find it, but Mom was able to find it for me!! The game is very much like the ride without all the jerky motion. This is Dad and James playing Toy Story Mania (a new favorite Wii game-thanks mom and Dad I love it!!). In one of the games you have to follow the actions of Hammie so this is them doing Jumping Jacks.

Barbie and James going head to head in the Toy Story Mania battle. James pretty much was way more accurate then the rest of us and totally won, but it gives us something to aspire to :)

This is me with my booty from Christmas. Mostly put this picture in so that you would all know that I actually was there, I was just taking most of the pictures! Thanks for the torte pans Kim-it is so nice to have a pampered chef consultant in the family so that she can fill in what is on my wish list when I can't think of what I want. I have a great receipe that I have been wanting to try (and have been unable to find torte pans anywhere) so I will let you know how that goes!

James and Doug got Nerf guns for Christmas and proceeded to run around the house shooting each other. This is Doug hiding from James, because just like with Toy story mania he is crazy accurate. Must have something to do with being in the military although I figure as a corpman he doesn't have a lot of opportunity to shoot things.

Ahh the much awaited and longed for fried potato dumplings. Sooooo GOOD! The hot chocolate was wonderful too, and grandma's cinnamon rolls....

Dad and Barbie playing Scrabble Flash

Dad and Doug being excited over a gift that they didn't really understand, but I appreciated their enthusiasm. And they were really excited when I explained what it was as well.

Michelle opening one of her gifts.

Barbie and Doug (or the Mecham Family) also got the Toy Story Mania game. It is hard to contain that much excitement. Plus the new favorite movie in the Mecham household is Despicable Me (if you haven't seen it it is totally worth it!) and the little girl in the movie screams out about something, "It is so fluffy I could die". This has become the new mantra of the house and people (Doug, Barb, Stef, Dad) can all be heard to randomly screamm this exact thing out when ever the mood hits them. Have to love the movie quotes.

Doug was so excited for the bindings for his snow board...and then he opened the box and realized that there was only ONE binding in there. Hopefully the store will be able to provide him with the missing binding on Monday since he has plans to go snowboarding on Tuesday...

Dad with a great classic face of excitement for his Ipod touch case.

Opening a family gift.

Barbie so excited for her gift from Luke of Gone with the Wind! She was not so excited when no one would agree to sit through a 4 hour long story of misery and woe. She has since conceded that this may be a movie that she has to watch alone in her bedroom when no one else is around.

James gettin his box of movies with the obligatory copy of Pride and prejudice since we all know that REAL men will love and adore this film like we do.

Kim and Drew this is Grandma and Grandpa opening their gifts from us. Grandpa liked it so much he said that it was his and wouldn't give it to Grandma until Grandma uncrumpled the wrapping paper and showed him that it had BOTH their names on it. If you wanted to look a little closer at what they got it is the books of reflections of Christ by Mark Mabry, but have a box of tissues, because the pictures accompanied by the stories moved us all to tears multiple times through the reading. The pics are SO amazing!

Yes Dad did make this for mom. No he will not EVER be making another one for anyone else again. If I am remembering correctly the angel just by itself took something like 30 individual cuts and each palm tree took 30 minutes so you can just imagine how long everything else took. It turned out amazing though and I totally think it is worth every single minute of his time. Probably the most beautiful wood nativity I have ever seen. (And no I am not saying that just in the hopes that he will change his mind and make me one:) It really is amazing!!)

So the theme for Barbie's Christmas this year appeared to be oral care (Drew, it kind of reminded me of the year that you got all that camping gear, which we thought was a little random but has come into good use now). She thinks it either means that she has stinky breath or that she needs to be prepared for all the kissing that is coming her way this upcoming year. She is banking on the kissing reason.

Doug got his much awaited for Xbox 360 and Halo reach. He was very excited, yet still waited patiently for us to play a game of Toy story mania, and a game of Wii pictionary before he set up the 360.

Mom and dad with their identical looks of excitement over the gift of the ipod touch! Mom took a little convincing that an ipod was really in the box. She thought that maybe we had put something else in there. Then we spent a good amount of time this afternoon getting the accounts all set up and ready to go! Mom is already zipwording it up!

So Breanna and I made a trip to Kohls on black friday (they had a set of toy story Mr. Potato Heads that I just had to have) and we saw this Superman snuggy and we knew that Dad just HAD to have it. Doesn't it look amazing!?!?!

Grandpa getting his stocking and yes he commented on how small it was this year.

James, Dad, and Doug all excited for their stockings. No this is not a picture that I took with Barbie unawares. Her pouting face is because she looked in the stocking and was very disappointed that Santa forgot to leave the orange, peanuts, and candy in the stocking this year. He had decided that leaving it in the stocking was to messy so he left everything (except for the candy-he must have heard about all the cavities, root canals, and crowns that were needed here throughout the year) on the coffee table in bowls.

So I started the fire this year, but it was sad and pathetic as about 7/10 of my fires are so dad came and worked his magic so that it actually put off some heat!!

These are still pics of Christmas they just came from Jared's camera instead of mine and again the whole picture placement in the blog is just to difficult to work with.

Sadie, Matthew, and Trinity with their cards from Great grandma and grandpa

Grandma Goodie was looking for a polly pocket for Trini and found this cute new toy that looks EXACTLY like a polly pocket except for the fact that it is a pig called Olivia. She was very excited!!

Trini and Grandma with the calendar that Trini got for her.

Trini with Grandpa and Doug with the pencil jars she made special just for them.

Doug with his Halo mega blocks that he got for Christmas!

Can't remember what was opened, but thought the pic was cute!

Matthew with the most AWESOME shirt EVER!!

And then he got Fable III-so much excitement on this little face!



So I know you are all expecting Grandpa Andreasen to have read the Christmas story this year, but he passed the book to Dad, so this is Dad's first Christmas (that I have in my memory anyway) reading the Christmas Story from Luke 2. Yes it was read on Christmas Eve, but the blog puts my pics added at the top and the video added all the way at the bottom. No method to this madness. Dad did a wonderful job and I look forward to hearing him read the same story for many Christmases to come!

This concludes my Christmas post! I hope you all have had a wonderful and merry Christmas! It is so wonderful that we are able to celebrate the birth of our Savior and I am so thankful for all of the wonderful blessings we have and the love we are able to share. I love you all and missed having everyone home like we did last year, but hopefully next year we can all get together again! Love you all tons and tons (and you should know this by the wonderful blog that has taken me several hours to complete).