Christmas-Time

The Hunsaker fam had such a great Christmas!

We spent Christmas with the Payne's. Rob's parents are in Texas and we really missed spending the holidays with them. It makes you appreciate them so much more when you realize what's it like without them.

I know they are having a great time with their daughters and grandchildren though!

Christmas Eve is always such a blast at my parents house and this year was no different.

Events included:

Visiting with lots of family.

Delicious prime rib and crab legs amongst other yummy appetizers and food.

Singing Christmas carols around the piano with my Grandma Payne playing.

A little program with beautiful singing.

Opening the traditional Christmas Eve pajamas from Mom & Dad.

Reading a Christmas Story.

Putting our stockings out for Santa to find us.

Putting Christmas cookies and milk out for Santa.

Here's the fun bunch that we had the joy of celebrating with!

The dogs even joined in on the Christmas celebration!

I would like to share a special experience we had Christmas Eve. My Grandma Payne (my dad's mom) joined us, as did many of my aunts and uncles (my dad's brothers and sisters) and some of my cousins. My sweet grandma has Alzheimers and she has really gone down-hill the last few months. I think she recognizes our faces, but she is so very confused. Christmas Eve, we gathered in my mom's living room to sing Christmas songs around the piano. My grandma used to sit at the piano all Christmas Eve and play Christmas songs from memory (she actually never read sheet music. She always learned by sound. I used to be able to sing a single line of a song to her and she would play it back to me and then make up accompaniment to the whole rest of the song- such amazing talent!). Anyways, she is quite the popular lady at the nursing home she lives in. Popular for her piano playing skills. She sat down at the piano Christmas Eve night and played song after song. It was remarkable that even with the severe memory loss she has suffered she could still play the piano with perfection. What made the night most special was when my mom and I were singing Silent Night to everyone, Grandma suddenly joined in with the sweetest most beautiful voice and sang with us. No one had to say anything about it, but we really felt her true spirit with us and there weren't many dry eyes. It was a wonderful Christmas Eve and my testimony was greatly strengthened as I sang about our Savior's birth and thought about the plan of salvation. That someday my grandma will be herself again (and we got to see a small glimpse of her old self that night). I'm truly grateful for our Savior's birth and mostly for his life, for the atonement that makes it possible for us to be together as a family forever someday.

Grandma and me on Christmas Eve

 New matching jammies! Grrr...

 Drake in his new Christmas jammies. I love, love, love his adorable slippers!

 Christmas morning we woke up at 5:30 am since my little sister Hannah begged us too. Santa definitely found us! Rob's main gift was a ladder and nice boots and my main gift was a KitchenAid. We got a few other great gifts, but the most exciting thing from my parents is....Drumroll please....a trip to CANCUN! Leaving this week with the whole fam! (minus Drake. Don't ask me how I feel about this...tears)

I gave Rob a foosball game for his office and his Utah State diploma framed nicely for his office.

He surprised me with a Crockpot cookbook and perfume set.

We also bought ourselves a treadmill, but we've been using it for a couple weeks so we could try to get into shape before our Cancun trip.

 When Drake woke up, he was pretty excited about all that was going on. I think everyone was just as excited that he was finally awake and we could open presents with him.

Love the tired eyes! 

 Could there be a better present than this cutie in a box!?

 Drake got lots of toys and had a great time opening presents and enjoying all the commotion with wrapping paper, boxes, bows, etc strewn all over the place!

 He thought most of his presents were edible.

 Cute new sweats and Musical Table from Grandma which he loves!

 He's not quite as excited about his cute new hat we made him wear for a picture.

 We ended up staying at my parents for 4 days. There was so much food, games, and fun things going on that we didn't want to leave. The amount of calories I consumed over Christmas is astronomical I'm sure! So many goodies!

We tried to work some of it off by playing the kids new Kinect. It was a favorite for sure! The guys got really into it! It's actually really fun to play.

We were able to see Rob's brothers and their families this week and of course, I forgot my camera. We got together at Chad & Jill's for games, pizza, and just hanging out. It was great!

Goodbye Christmas 2010, Hello New Year 2011!