My brother is officially married! :]
And Christmas was woooonderful.
So that's what I will be blogging about. Sorry I'm little slow.
We'll begin with the wedding!
On Saturday, December 19th, 2009 my brother,
Jonathon E.B. Olmstead was sealed for time and all eternity to
Jaclyn Anne Francois in the Mesa Temple!
It's crrrazy having brothers get married.
Crazy and exciting of course.
Here are some pictures of the beautiful wedding and reception
Here's the happy couple right outside the temple:
Here are the handsome groomsmen:
And the bridesmaids :] :
And here is my ENTIRE FAMILY (all eleven children and two in-laws) at the reception:
Daaaang good looking people. :]
I love my family and it was so wonderful to see
my brother get sealed in the temple.
Both of my brothers and both of my sister-in-laws are wonderful examples to me and
I am so grateful for them.
I can not wait to follow in their footsteps and get married in the House of the Lord.
So only a few days after the wedding came another wonderful thing...
CHRISTMAS! :]
My family does not have very many consistent Christmas traditions because my parents like to mix things up every year. Some of the traditions I can remember doing over the years are:
This year as we read the Christmas story and sang Christmas songs in our living room I was filled with an overwhelming love and gratitude for the wonderful family that I have been blessed with. I was able to hear stories about the lives of my grandparents and I was able to hear their testimonies of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was able to see my parents and my siblings and some of my cousins and my aunt and uncle and my grandparents and feel the love that they have for me as well as the love that I have for each of them. Along with this I felt the love that my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have for me. This love cannot be captured in words or pictures but I did take some pictures of that night so that at least I can look back on them and remember. Maybe the love, warmth, and comfort will translate through somehow...
Here are my grandparents and one of my cousins:
More family (we sit on the stairs a lot since we never have enough couch space):
And some more family (we are happier than we look...I promise. Haha):
Well, that's about it. The next day was Christmas and it was quite fun as always. Opening presents took FOREVER cause we have so many people and we open one present at a time starting from the youngest and going to the oldest but by the end I think we all cheated a little bit and opened presents in secret...I did at least. Oops. ;)
Oh, one more tradition that I have with my two sisters, Helena and Gelsey is that for the past four years we have gotten matching or at least similar pajamas every year that we wear to bed on Christmas Eve. So here is our picture from this year of us in our super comfy and warm FOOTIES! :]
So that's what I will be blogging about. Sorry I'm little slow.
We'll begin with the wedding!
On Saturday, December 19th, 2009 my brother,
Jonathon E.B. Olmstead was sealed for time and all eternity to
Jaclyn Anne Francois in the Mesa Temple!
It's crrrazy having brothers get married.
Crazy and exciting of course.
Here are some pictures of the beautiful wedding and reception
Here's the happy couple right outside the temple:
Here are the handsome groomsmen:
And the bridesmaids :] :
And here is my ENTIRE FAMILY (all eleven children and two in-laws) at the reception:
Daaaang good looking people. :]I love my family and it was so wonderful to see
my brother get sealed in the temple.
Both of my brothers and both of my sister-in-laws are wonderful examples to me and
I am so grateful for them.
I can not wait to follow in their footsteps and get married in the House of the Lord.
So only a few days after the wedding came another wonderful thing...
CHRISTMAS! :]
My family does not have very many consistent Christmas traditions because my parents like to mix things up every year. Some of the traditions I can remember doing over the years are:
- The Twelve Days of Christmas (they tricked us into thinking someone else was doing it for us). It ended with delicious cinnamon rolls brought to us on Christmas morning by my little brother.
- Some years we go to the church and my mom plays the piano or organ and we sing the Christmas songs from the hymn book.
- One year we had Christmas on Thanksgiving (as a surprise) so that we could focus more on the real meaning of Christmas as it came about.
- We make gingerbread houses almost every year.
- And we of course always read the Christmas story out of Luke 2 in the Bible.
This year as we read the Christmas story and sang Christmas songs in our living room I was filled with an overwhelming love and gratitude for the wonderful family that I have been blessed with. I was able to hear stories about the lives of my grandparents and I was able to hear their testimonies of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was able to see my parents and my siblings and some of my cousins and my aunt and uncle and my grandparents and feel the love that they have for me as well as the love that I have for each of them. Along with this I felt the love that my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have for me. This love cannot be captured in words or pictures but I did take some pictures of that night so that at least I can look back on them and remember. Maybe the love, warmth, and comfort will translate through somehow...
Here are my grandparents and one of my cousins:
More family (we sit on the stairs a lot since we never have enough couch space):
And some more family (we are happier than we look...I promise. Haha):
Well, that's about it. The next day was Christmas and it was quite fun as always. Opening presents took FOREVER cause we have so many people and we open one present at a time starting from the youngest and going to the oldest but by the end I think we all cheated a little bit and opened presents in secret...I did at least. Oops. ;)Oh, one more tradition that I have with my two sisters, Helena and Gelsey is that for the past four years we have gotten matching or at least similar pajamas every year that we wear to bed on Christmas Eve. So here is our picture from this year of us in our super comfy and warm FOOTIES! :]
Oh so funn! The wedding looked beautiful!!! What a beautiful family! And yayyy fun Christmas! And LOVED the footies! I'm glad we had the same sisters-matching-pajamas idea haha! :)
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