Ackerman Christmas Party

Saturday Night was the Annual Ackerman Christmas Party. The party is held at Pete’s parent’s house and everybody in the family invited their friends. With 11 people in the family I’m sure you can imagine what kind of a crowd it brought.
Susan and Jim and the other kids at home worked hard to make the home beautiful and prepare tons of yummy food and drinks.

This is Sarah, Megan and I. We are the wifes of the three boys below.

This is Pete and two of his best friends from the SUU days Jack and Josh.

This is my good friend Ashley Jackson and I at the party. You can kinda see behind us how full the room is.

As the night went on, there had to have been between 100-150 people stop by. It was shoulder to shoulder in every room of the house. At around 9:30 the entertainment portion of the party began and it ended up being a hit! Joel, Pete’s brother hosted the program and sang a couple of hilarious original songs. It was about an hour program with everything from Rusty the accordion elf, to an “801 Rap” written and performed by Pete’s brother Dave.

Rusty the Elf.

This is Joel singing one of his numbers.

It's Christmas in Manti

My brilliant parents have been celebrating holidays a few days early or a few days late so that all of the kids will be able to come home and there won’t be any sharing holidays with the in-laws.
We had our Manti Christmas Eve on Dec 19th and our Christmas morning on the 20th.
Here are some pictures of the family opening presents.

This is my adorable Dad and my sister Karen and her husband Jeffery showing off thier mittons for two that my Granny made for them. The mitton set includes one mitton each and one big tube mitton that they can both wear to hold hands in. Isn't it brilliant?!

My brother Dave opening a present.

This is my Granny Oliver, my sister-in-law Kim and my brother Ned.

This is my brother James and his wife Cami and thier beautiful new baby boy Hudson born in October.

This is my sister Mary and her husband Aaron. Mary and Aaron are expecting in June! Congrats you two! We can't wait to meet the new member of the family!

Manti Light Parade

Manti City always has a light parade down Main Street the weekend after Thanksgiving. Everyone from the city comes out to watch the 5 min parade and then they meet at the high school for food and entertainment. This year my Dad sang Christmas songs in a barbershop quartette and they did great.

It was so fun to see my friends from Manti and spend time with the family.

It's Christmas Time!

Pete and I are so excited that Christmas time is here. We pulled out our humble tree and the few decorations that we have collected. This is our second Christmas together and we have decided that it’s a great time to start our family Christmas traditions. We have been brain storming trying to combine different traditions from both sides of our families and also create our own. We would love to hear your traditions to give us ideas.