Christmas is coming . . . traditions?

Christmas is one of my favorite holidays. Always has been. It has always been one of my favorite times spent with my family. We have created our share of unique Christmas traditions over the years. Everything from seeing how many puzzles we can do in our days together, to our version of Christmas Eve dinner, and one of my all time favorites "Christmas Crunch".

This year is going to be different. For the first time in my life I won't be having Christmas with my family in Meridian. We will be spending Christmas with Eric's family in Nebraska. While I am excited to spend some time with them and get to know them better, I will miss my family terribly and our funny Christmas traditions.

But this has got me thinking about Eric and I creating some Christmas traditions of our own. This being our first Christmas together I don't really know where to start. I have all my Christmas shopping done and Eric is almost done with his. Shopping together has been fun, interesting, but fun. Eric put up lights on the house, the decorations are put up all over, gifts are wrapped under the tree, so it seems like we are pretty much ready. Only a couple things left to do.

All I have left to ask is what kind of traditions do we want to have in our new family. I realize traditions tend to create themselves so we'll have to see what happens. My question for you is, what is your favorite Christmas Tradition?

My first niece!!

My twin sister Jennifer and her husband Tyson had their first baby girl last night. Her name is Lily Ann Hansen and she is beautiful and in my opinion she looks just like her mother. I am so excited to go home to visit my family in six weeks and get to actually meet her! Baby girls are so much fun!

Plus it is exciting to add another girl to the family. The boys were four up on us and now that lead is cut down to three :) We'll see how long that lasts ;)

It is official!!

As some of you, but maybe not all of you know my family has grown significantly over the past year or so and not just due to three weddings. My parents decided a little over a year ago to take in 6 little brothers and sisters that needed a good home (well there were 5 at the time and the 6th was on his way). Well exactly 13 months to the day that they arrived in our home (yesterday) the adoptions were all finalized, so I officially have 4 more little brothers and 2 more little sisters. They are great kids and I am so excited that they are officially a part of our family.

Excited To Go Home

Time moves much faster than I would like, but this week I realized that I am going home to see my family next week. This trip home will be full of firsts for me. I haven't been home since March, which doesn't seem that long ago, but with all of the changes in my family it seems like forever ago. When I went home in March it was to meet my five new brothers and sisters.

On this trip home I will be seeing my parents new house for the first time. For the first time since I left home almost 9 years ago I will be going home not to the house I know, but to a new one which will be a different experience all together. I still have mixed feelings about it, but oh well . . . it will be different.

I will be meeting my newest little brother Jack who was born in August. I have heard him cry over the phone plenty of times, but it will be fun to finally get to meet him and hold him. I am also excited to see the little kids. I miss them too. Sorry . . . wish I could post a picture but we still can't.

I will be meeting my first nephew for the first time. He was born two weeks ago and I will be getting to hold him while his mom and dad are in the temple for Ali's wedding.


I will be meeting Jenn and Tyson's new dog Oscar. Being a dog person my self I am quite excited about that. I only wish that I could bring Cletus along to meet his cousin.


And lastly I will be meeting Chaz . . . Ali's almost husband. I have been away from home for a long time and never met him when he and Ali dated in high school, etc. The family approves of him so I will trust their good opinion. The reason for the trip is Ali's wedding so it will be fun to be there.


In any case it will be a lot of firsts for me on this trip and I will be meeting a lot of additions to my family. We'll hope that it isn't too crazy and busy that I don't get to enjoy it.