Olsen Family Christmas Party & New Year's Eve

The Olsen Family party was held the Saturday after Christmas.

Mom was the hostess again...she was a busy woman as usual.

And once again, I was negligent in my picture taking duties.

Matt was really excited to see my cousin Sarah's husband, Max.  They have fun together :)

Some of the gang...

Pretty low key...eating, gifts and games but it is always good to see everyone.

We were missing Grandma "O" this year :(

NEW YEAR'S EVE

We had dinner at Mom and Dad's, played games (we do that a lot around the holidays) and then came home, played more games and range in the new year at midnight...

Happy New Year from the Bryans!

(Ben was in bed asleep)

Post Christmas in Park City

We spent a few days after Christmas in Park City with the Bryan clan.

The kids taught their cousins Schmoovie

Here Andy is helping us Face Time with Lyndi for the gals' favorite things...and trying out one of Becky's favorite things, a scalp massager.

For one of my favorite things I had everyone make Italian sodas...

They seemed to be a hit...

...with the kids too :)

One day the girls were bored while the guys were off doing Top Golf so they decided to clean and organize Grandma's pantry.

Another thing we did while we were there was see The Greatest Showman.

I had looked it up online to see if it was going to be clean and it certainly looked like it was going to be.  However, I was a little disappointed with a bit of language and a few other things but overall, if you don't mind a good musical, it's pretty good.  We have been obsessed with the music ever since.

Seriously!  Such amazing music.  The more you listen to it the better it gets :)

This was our favorite things haul:

Lyndi sent the Magnolia bags, skinny pop and costco gift cards from Tennessee.

Nancy did the family pillows because we are her favorite things :)

Jenny gave us IZZEs, and Dr Teal's coconut bath salts and bubbles.

Wendy got the picnic throws and strawberry corers for us.

Becky gave us the head massager mentioned above and her favorite can opener.

I did the Italian sodas, my ornament for the year, some of my favorite dark chocolates and some dish towels with vintage kitchen images that express some of my sentiments about cooking:

"Nothing, it's what's for dinner"

"You never have to worry that you didn't turn the oven off if you never turn it on"

and this one was especially for Nancy, "Expiration dates are for the weak". (Hence the girls cleaning out her pantry :)

I also told them about a podcast that I have really been enjoying during my runs...Bold New Mom.

She has amazing perspectives on relationships, emotions, thoughts etc.

Somehow I neglected to get any pictures of Ben but he was there...playing with the choo choos, lining up the toys and watching Mickey Mouse.

Christmas Day

So here we have a truck full of pictures of Christmas morning...

If you are my mom you might enjoy them (I don't know, she might even get tired of them :)

But don't feel obligated to gaze and smile upon each one...

We finally got Ben to join the others for a few shots but he wasn't happy about it...

Andy liked his Bob Ross socks I found for him...

I thought this was a fun little progression of Ben pics...

Abby was excited about whatever it was Matt was opening :)

She asked for a calculator for Christmas ?!?!?!?

Ben's sweet teachers gave him the most perfect gift...

along with a beautifully made Cat in the Hat pillowcase, they had this shirt made...

Ben calls Cat and the Hat "Go Go" because of the opening credit song.

He loves it and so do I!

Another grouping of pictures of these cute guys...

The rest of the day was spent playing games, hangin' with family, eating and watching a movie.

Games are always a big part of Christmas for us.

Some of our favorites we got this year are Schmoovie (Thank you James), Code Names picture version and Hive.  The first two are party type group games and Hive is a quick strategy game.

They were all winners!