Christmas Eve Pajamas

Christmas Eve was Trek's first Sunday as bishop of our ward & he did really good.  You could tell he was a little nervous, but he good.  I sang a musical number with some friends & our family sang Silent Night in German with the guitar for the closing song.  Trek had a couple of interviews after church, then we rushed to Mimi & Baba's house to start the Christmas Eve festivities.

We had a delicious big dinner, did our nativity play, played games & watched The Santa Claus 2 together.  In the middle of the movie, the kids heard sleigh bells coming from Mimi's room, so we paused the movie & went to see what the noise was.  We found several wrapped packages in Mimi's bathtub.

The kids always look forward to their "pajamas" on Christmas Eve.  This year Santa brought us Lord of the Rings themed pajamas.

Merry Christmas from the Potter house!

 

Pictures, Food, & Wonka

Wednesday morning we woke up SUPER early so we could be at the top of the Bountiful mountain by 8am.  Tarrish is learning how to be a photographer so she did family pictures for us which was super sweet of her.  We did pictures in normal clothes & then in our ugly sweaters.  It was a ton of fun & we got some great pictures out of it.  Tarrish does a really great job.

After pictures, we all met up at Penny Ann's Cafe in Salt Lake for an amazing lunch.  It was the most amazing brunch spot.  I had loaded biscuits & gravy with eggs, bacon, sausage, peppers, mushrooms, & onions.  We also got hot chocolate, scones, donuts, pancakes, & more.  It was INSANELY delicious.  Tarrish & John treated us like kings & queens while they were there.

After brunch we went & saw the movie Wonka together.  It was fantastic.  It's a musical (which I did not know) & we all loved it.

Family time is the best.

 

Christmas Concerts & Ugly Sweater Fun!

The week before Christmas, we had the opportunity to spend the week with Trek's Sister, Tarrish.  We haven't seen Tarrish in probably 5 or 6 years so we were SUPER excited that she & John were flying to Utah to visit us.

Monday, December 18th, we picked up the kiddos from school, then drove to The Olive Garden in Bountiful so we could meet up with Tarrish, John, Opa, Oma, Carolyn & her kiddos.  Emery had a band concert, so we all got to sit & watch her perform which was super fun.  Dinner was a blast (everyone loves Italian!), then we watched the band concert.

After the concert, Opa & Oma came back with us & we took them to the Draper Park to see "the Tree of Life."  It's so beautiful when it's all lit up for the holidays.

Tuesday, the 19th, the whole family came over after the kids got out of school.  Tarrish & John ordered pizza from The Pie & brought everyone red sweatshirts was TONS of craft things to create our own personal ugly Christmas sweaters.  They also brought us each Santa Hats.  We spent the night eating pizza & glitterizing our sweatshirts.

While we waited for the glue & glitter to dry, we watched the movie Klaus to get us in the Christmas spirit.

It was a super fun night together with family.

 

Sorensen Christmas Party 2023

Immediately after Trek got put in as bishop of our ward at church, we rushed down to Salem, UT to put on the Sorensen Family Christmas Party (which I was in charge of this year).  We had it at my aunt & uncles house because it's pretty much the only place that can hold the entire Sorensen clan in it.

It was fun.  We did a fiesta dinner with cafe rio sweet pork, taco meat, & shredded chicken in all sorts of forms like tacos, burritos, bowls, salads, you name it.  The toppings were great & the sauces were spectacular.  It turned out to be a really delicious group meal together. . . & when I say together, I meant for all 100+ of us.

After dinner we did Gingerbread houses with all the kids which they loved.  The adults just chatted while the kids got creative.

Then we played some reindeer games by scooping marshmallows with our "hooves" in 30 seconds.

After that we did a white elephant gift exchange that took well over an hour because there were SO MANY OF US THERE.  It was so much fun.

Then we cleaned it all up & headed back home.  Canyon was very proud of his gingerbread house.

I know doing these parties is a ton of work (& yes I was pretty stressed out about it), but once it's done you realize how great it is to spend time with all your aunts & uncles & cousins.  I love it so much.