Christmas Eve

Tonight was my family's annual Christmas Eve party. It is always spent at my Grampa Stradling's house with all of the extended family. I absolutely LOVE it! We really don't do much except eat Mexican food. There are always home made tamales and enchiladas made by mom and aunts. It is just fun because we are all there together. Of course, we never have everyone there at the same time because there are just too many of us, and we are all spread everywhere, but we are excited with whoever does show up.

My cousin, Cliff and his wife Lisa were there and that was really fun. They live in Utah so we don't see them often. They filmed everyone and we took a picture or two with them.

The picture of the little girl, is Kenady (Jaymi's little girl). We could not get her to smile at all. She wasn't mad or upset, but just very solemn. She was spread out between Trevor and Ariel just making this serious face!

One of my favorite pictures I took was of my sister, Taylor and our Grampa. He was just sitting there with his arm around her so I grabbed my camera as quick as I could and snapped a picture. He just kind of sat there and took everything in last night. He was really quiet. He finally said, "My mom always wanted a big family. She would be so proud." My great-gramma, or Nan as she was called only had my grampa. Her second baby died and a few weeks later her husband died, so that is why she always longed for a big family.

We missed those of you who couldn't make it, but we hope to see you next year. Of course, that probably means that most of the ones we did see this year won't be there next year. I guess that's part of growing up!