Rasmania 101: A Wonderful and Tiring Christmas Season

Christmas brought a flurry of activity and activities. I realize I haven't written for three weeks, but I think it would be impossible at this point to go back and catch up. I'll just say that our friends Heeyoung and Jun took Roy and Caitlyn and me out to dinner at La Cai noodle house in Salt Lake. We also invited them to the Christmas program in our ward that was held the week before Christmas Eve (which worked out perfectly since Heeyoung and Jun went to spend the holiday in Hawaii). Heeyoung came with her little boy, but Jun and their daughter stayed home.

We spent Christmas Eve with all the family except for Elise, Andy, Max, Mav and Beverly. We missed them greatly.

I was reminded of my wonderful mother as I chose presents for my grandchildren this year. She used to buy Trico nightgowns from Mormon Handicraft for my girls. They loved them. I found out that my granddaughters are no different. Mormon Handicraft doesn't exist anymore (at least I don't think it does), but now we have Etsy. I found a cute nightgown on Etsy, but I didn't realize that with a click of a button I could find smaller sizes, so I only ordered this nightgown for the three oldest granddaughters. I found two other designs and ordered for the rest of the girls. When they arrived, I saw that Yuna's nightgown, though a size 4, was smaller than the size 2's I bought for Ruby and Effie. When I suggested to Caitlyn that we switch them around, she wouldn't let me because she felt the colors I chose for each girl was perfect for their personality.

Greta has to grow a little to fit in her nightgown

I love the hugging going on between cousins.
Ruby and Doyeon in this case.

Greta and Hyeji

Yuna

Effie also has some growing to do.

Ori and Doyeon

Of course, I couldn't leave out the boys. I took care of Max and Mav's Christmas while I was in Texas, and they didn't need pajamas, but I got Pj's for all the Utah grandsons.

Dojin

Ollie loves to dress up. He specifically requested Chinese
pajamas. I found these on Etsy. The size was "right" but they
were definitely on the small side. He didn't want me to send them back.

Gunnar and Caityn got Harry Potter Pj's. I should
have taken a picture of them together.

Here are most of them in their new jammies.

The kids exchanged cousin gifts (they drew names earlier) before we tried to kick them all downstairs while the adults had a White Elephant gift exchange. The theme was, "most stealable gift" Everyone got the memo but Adrienne and AJ, who gifted a squatty potty and a bubble suit. Jieun was happy with the squatty potty, and I'm sure Caitlyn will have some use for her bubble suit. Maybe.

I'm jumping the gun a little by starting on Christmas Eve. I can't leave out that every year Grandpa Roy plans an activity to take all the family to the Train Shoppe in SLC and let them all ride the little train. We did this on the 23rd. The kids were in Heaven!

Dojin was running everywhere and he loved
every minute of the activity

So did Effie.

Did I mention Santa was at the Train Shoppe?

Even the big kids can ride the train.

After the Train Shoppe we met for lunch at Apollo Burger. It was fun and hectic. Whenever you order for a crowd, they always make mistakes, but all was figured out and everyone was happy.

Christmas morning was quiet. We were blessed to have Crista, Matt, Ruby and Greta stay overnight with us on Christmas Eve and open presents with us on Christmas morning.

Of course, in all of the flurry, we missed Elise and Andy and were grateful that we had a lot of time with them earlier in the month.

Beverly

I'm sure they enjoyed their quiet (?) Christmas together.

Mav, Max and Andy

The Jackson boys got new bunk beds, a big blow-up dinosaur from Adrienne's family. And I'm sure plenty of other fun stuff.

You'd think when Christmas was over things would slow down, but we had a birthday to celebrate, and two weddings, and unfortunately, a funeral for a young lady in our previous ward who had a brain aneurysm. She left behind a husband and 3 children, including a newborn. (I ended up tending so Nick, Sara, Roy and Caitlyn could go to the funeral. Nick and Sara are still in their ward, and Mary Sandall, the young woman who passed away, was a Young Women leader to Caitlyn).

Dojin turned 1, 2 days after Christmas. We all went over to their house on the 26th to celebrate with the Dan Rasband family.

Kiok, Jieun's mom, spent Christmas with them. She arrived on Christmas Day, so she was there for Dojin's party.

The first wedding was Jacob Christensen. He married a girl named Brianna. I didn't get pics of the cute couple, but I got one with my sisters. I have to remember not to stand on the end for pictures. I always hate my pictures though, so it probably doesn't really matter.

Catharine, Nan & Christine

The 2nd wedding was for Jieun's aunt's, sister's son, so they are actually not related at all to Jieun, but she has always considered them cousins. They considered us family enough to invite us to the temple ceremony. So, we had the honor of being in the temple and hearing the wonderful words of the temple sealing 2 days in a row.

Doyeon, Kiok, Hyeji, Jieun, Dan and Dojin at the wedding reception for Preston Soh

After we left the above reception, Roy hurried to magnify his calling as a High Counselor for the Young Single Adults Stake. Every year they have a big party at the Recreation Center. They rent out nearly the whole facility so the YSAs can skate, swim, and dance. Caitlyn and I hurried onto the ice for a quick few times around before we were invaded by hundreds of YSAs.

Yes, it got busier than this.

Below are a few more pictures of our family during the holidays.

Our Christmas Eve tradition includes a dinner with Crab and ribs.
It's delicious, but of course these kids were too excited to eat much.

Cousins gift exchange

I made these funny sleep masks for everyone. I'm pretty sure Ori is the only one that actually uses it, but it was cute.

Mav

This was my attempt at bringing a little of the true Christmas spirit into
Christmas. The story is called, "We believe in Christmas." It shows why we celebrate
and what the various symbols mean. It was hard to get the kids quiet enough to listen,
but I felt it was important to try at least.