The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2009 ended very enjoyably for us. We spent a few days in Blanding for Christmas. We always love our time down there and this was no different. All of my siblings were there, except Joshy, but we did get to talk to him on Christmas day. As it always is when we're all there it was a circus, but it was a very fun circus. I am so thankful for the Christmas season that reminds us to think of the birth of our Savior and it always helps me to realize how blessed I am.


My nieces and nephews acted out a live nativity scene at our Halliday and Lyman family parties. These pictures are from the Christmas Eve nativity in our garage...those are some darn cute kids.


I included this picture because it is the best picture that I got of Paco. We surprised my dad during the nativity with his Christmas present - a donkey! For a couple of weeks before Christmas a lot of people accidentally made mention of the donkey while my dad was around, so I don't think he was very surprised that we got him a donkey, but I don't think he was expecting it on the 24th so at least that part was a surprise. Yes, you read right, we got my dad a donkey for Christmas. My dad had a donkey named Eager when he was younger that he absolutely loved and still talks about. We've joked about getting him a donkey before, but this year we decided we should just stop joking and find the right donkey to join our family. My dad named him Paco and we all absolutely love him. Seriously though, how could you not? He is one cute donkey!

Jake and Maxon played the part of the sheep and they did a very good job of it. Cohen was supposed to be a sheep with Max, but the poor little guy got very sick and spent most of the night at the hospital getting breathing treatments. Luckily, Jake was ready to step in at the last minute.

Grandpa loved Paco right from the first minute he met him.

New Year's Eve also ended up being a lot of fun for us this year. We invited a few friends over to our place at the last minute and just ended up hanging out, rocking out (Rock Band) and eating lots of junk. Happy 2010!!!

We tried a lot of combinations to get our band tour-ready. Some combinations were much better than others, but all in all we rocked out pretty well and had a lot of fun.

Krew even got to join in on the fun for a little while.

Here's the guys ringing in the new year by pulling the popping confetti things. I hope 2010 is as great for us as 2009 was!