Christmas Eve at the Marshalls

Marshall side of the family tried something new this year! Instead of a traditional Chistmas dinner, we had Chinese takeout! It was really good. Thanks Mom and Dad! We had fun trying different dishes and thought that the fortune cookies at the end were hilarious because there were so many doubles.

Then we played Christmas songs on homemade pipe chimes. We have done it before too and it is always fun.

Then we acted out the nativity. Grant was a cow again sinced he loved that so much the day before. "Moooo!" Victoria was an angel again and Christian was not a shepherd but a

 little sheep. He created his look all by himself. I thought the black shoe hooves were pretty clever.

Hailey was Mary and had fun riding on her dad, Scott, the donkey.

Sydney, Ella, and V were the heavenly hosts(angels). Issaac was a super cute baby Jesus. Pictures on Lorel's blog. 

After the scripture reading, my parents gave all of the kids 1 present to open- Zhu zhu pets! They thought they were so funny and it was pretty neat to see them scurrying all over the place.

 

Love this picture of Grant and Ella cracking up over the little zhu zhus running around in a drum.

 Here is Ella in some fairy wings from Christian.  She looked so cute.

We didn't do the cousin gift exchange because Matt's family wasn't there and Scotts girls and my boys had gifts from them. We both didn't bring the gifts from them with us. Maybe next year we should remember. Two of my kids had Ella and Issac though, so we asked if  we could stick around and let them open theirs. While we were together, and weren't sure if we would be there at the next day or at least at the same time, we gave mom and dad a present from Craig, Lorel, Danny and I- a firepit for the river house and smore supplies to go with it. Hope that they will enjoy it. We think it will be fun to use there.