Merry Christmas

For some reason, I can't sleep in this holiday break so I'm going to do something productive while my family are all sleeping -- blog about Christmas!

We had a great Christmas Eve. Like I mentioned earlier, Brandon worked from home that day. After Nicki left the girls came with me to run some errands. Isn't shopping on Christmas Eve the best? The crowds weren't that bad, everyone seemed to be in cheery moods, and there was only one spot of traffic that was a little difficult to maneuver. We stopped at Deseret Book to check out their Christmas sales. I got a cute little nativity to add to my collection (sorry, I didn't take a picture; maybe I'll add one later). Chloe picked out a book she wanted, and I bought "The Forgotten Carols" DVD since I'm not sure that I'll ever get to go see it.

We tried to stick with the Subway sandwiches on Christmas Eve tradition, but mixed it up a little this year and made our own. I splurged and got chips and soda (pomegranate 7-Up). Yes, buying my kids chips and soda will create fond memories of Christmas. Slaving over some fancy turkey dinner would create unhappiness -- I think for all 4 of us. After chores Brandon lit a fire that we enjoyed while reading the book Chloe picked out, "A Candle in the Window," drank egg nog, and then we watched "The Forgotten Carols." Sophie was a little worried about starting the fire, afraid that Santa would burn his butt when he came down the chimney, but Brandon assured her that we would get it all put out before going to bed. He did a good job.

Christmas morning we ate breakfast while Brandon read the Christmas story out of Luke. Then we opened our gifts -- a great big THANK YOU to everyone who sent stuff. Brandon made an apple pie that we snacked on. The afternoon was spent watching movies and playing games. Jason, Shalee and Eli stopped by. Then Brandon completed the demo work on the ceiling in the guest room. That's our next big project, and decided we'd use the few days Brandon has off of work to get it done (or at least started).

Yesterday we worked on our new puzzle and made a big trip to Lowe's. We got MOST of what we need for the room, but we had to break it up into two trips to use different coupons. We got all the plumbing stuff and different mouldings. We still need the drywall and painting supplies. Oh, and this was all after the big shoveling party. Brandon was so depressed that we weren't getting the big snow storm promised on Christmas, but it did start to snow that evening. We woke up yesterday morning to LOTS of snow. I got to wear my new coat outside, which kept me SO warm!

Visit From the Cousins

Yesterday we got a surprise phone call. My brother (from California) called to tell me he was out at my brother's in Tooele (45 miles from my house). He's on his way to Afghanistan, but got a couple weeks off his training for Christmas. I thought it would be worth the trip out to Tooele to see them. I loaded the girls up and made the spontaneous trip. They had too much fun playing with their cousin, Nicki. I knew it would be a little difficult to pull them away, but when it was time to go they came up with a great plan: what if Nicki came to OUR house, and spent the night?!!!! (insert lots of little girl shrieks). I was fine with it, but it took her mom a while to realize that they'd be driving right past our house the next morning on their way up to my parents. So, it all made sense and we followed through. Nicki fell asleep on the way home, which was not a good thing because she had a hard time falling asleep that night, but we all survived. The girls had a great time, and I'm sure they'll have fond memories of their sleepover with their cousin.


Chloe was going to go to work with Brandon today, but with Nicki here she opted to hang out with her instead. So, Brandon opted to hang out with us as well. He worked from home today. That was fun, but he had a guy at work who was also going to bring his 7 year old daughter to work for the day. I'm kind of sad he had to bail out, but seeing Nicki doesn't happen all that often. I'm sure we made a good choice.

Welcome Home

Welcome Home, Uncle Ross! We got to go to the airport last Sunday to pick him up. He returned from his mission in New York. I don't know about him, but I sure think the two years went awfully fast. I got a picture of him with Sophie, but that wiggle wart made the picture too blurry (or maybe it had something to do with the photographer), but here's a pose of him with Eli. I think Eli was a little shocked at this stranger holding him, but he's pretty easy going. Ross still has one niece and one nephew to meet. I'm sure they'll be back for a visit someday. And the best news is that's he's coming to Salt Lake to go to school. His school is even located in the same building where Brandon works (for a few more months), so they might get to do lunch.

My parents and Lark got to go pick him up. Lark came back sporting a new I "heart" NY shirt. Then Grandma had a surprise for Chloe and Sophie -- matching shirts! Sophie ran upstairs to put her's on, but came back looking "exactly" like Aunt Lark. She had to get the long sleeve white shirt to wear under it, denim jeans, and white socks. Then Chloe ran off to copy. See the three amigos:

We've Got That Christmasy Feelin' Again

Look! My first picture of a child with Santa! I almost didn't believe her when Chloe came home from school and told me they had a visit from Santa -- AND that she got her picture with him. Good thing she brought the proof, a few days later. My kids have always been so scared of Santa. I've seen plenty of crying kids sitting on Santa's lap, but I've never felt like torturing my kids (in that way). I've always been grateful they aren't so comfortable sitting on some strangers lap. But look at that Chloe, I think she even has a smile on her face!

On Thursday I got to go help with Sophie's class Christmas party. Her teacher kept things pretty low key, which is nice. They just decorated "gingerbread" (aka milk carton) houses. Her teacher is so organized, and just calls one parent to help at each table. It keeps it simple and not overly crowded. And she's even so careful to make sure that the parents help at the table their child sits at. Sophie was so excited to get her picture taken with her house, but it was too dark by the time we had a chance Thursday night. I told her I would take one the next day. I got this one, but was hoping to get a shot with her in it after she came home from school, but no such luck. Always so much to do!

All I Want For Christmas...

Things have been kind of slow around here lately. That's a good thing. Brandon finished shutter #2, so our family room now has a matching set. We installed them last night, along with moving some furniture around so that we could set our Christmas tree up. Yeah, December 12th! Don't you think it's about time we get ready for Christmas? But honestly, I just wasn't in the mood to rearrange our house AGAIN, just to make room for a tree. So, when the thought popped into my head to just put it down in the basement everything fell into place. The girls were even really excited because their best friends have their tree in their basement (or so they say). Now we're more in the Christmas spirit.

Chloe is becoming familiar with the "All I Want For Chistmas is My Two Front Teeth" song. She's had this loose tooth FOREVER. But she thought she could wait until Christmas for it to fall out -- she wanted to put it under her pillow on Christmas. Hmmm... Santa and the Tooth Fairy in one night? Is that what she was trying to arrange? We were so sure it was coming out on Thanksgiving, but she kept it hanging in there. It was rather disturbing to look at, but we honored her wishes and left it alone. Finally, last week she was playing around with Brandon and they were making some plan to trick me into believing it had fell out. Brandon tells me she just reached into her mouth and plucked it out. He thinks even she was surprised at how easily it came out, but their plan to trick me was now foiled. Oh well. She now has a big gap to show off. This is her first real "gap." Her other two teeth had teeth pushing up to come through before they fell out. This one has no sign of a new tooth yet. She talks kind of funny now. Can't say her S's too well. We'll see if she gets a new tooth for Christmas.

Thanksgiving in Review

To tell you the truth, we didn't have a very "thankful" Thanksgiving. Chloe had been sick the whole night before. She was still throwing up Thursday morning, so we had to postpone our trip to Grandma's house. We didn't get there until late that afternoon, after everyone had already eaten, so we had our Thanksgiving dinner together as a family. The "left overs" were still pretty good.

My favorite part of the trip was coming across gas at $1.49 in Evanston. It was 6 cents cheaper on our way home, but that was late and we were all too tired to take a picture then but I got this one. And now that it's been well over a week, gas is even cheaper than that here in Centerville. Yeah for cheap gas, but Brandon wasn't too impressed with the price of Maverik's donuts -- I had to explain there was a decimal missing.



Friday was a much better day. Chloe was much improved. We all just hung out. Grandma treated all the grandkids to gingerbread houses. See how much my girls loved having their picture taken? I don't know where that came from.



Tyson took Chloe and Sophie on several 4-wheeling trips. They'd go out and ride around in the back yard for a while, come in (probably to warm up), but want to head right back out again. This lasted all day. Tyson was so good with them. You should have seen how careful he was driving with them on. Thanks, Ty.



And then the funniest thing was when Uncle Pete showed up. He was a day late for Thanksgiving dinner. He hung out for a bit, but then suddenly decided he had to get going. He came all the way from Nevada and was taking my grandma back with him. Grandma wasn't exactly prepared for this spontaneous move, so it was quite amusing seeing this 91 year old lady pack her life up to be gone for 4-5 months, all in about 10 minutes. I did manage to snag her and get a photo with the great-grandkids before she took off.



Saturday I threw a baby shower for my sister. She wanted to do it while we were all there for Thanksgiving, so that was nice to squeeze in.



But after the shower was over, the sickness returned. This time Sophie got it. She was sick all evening, and by morning Brandon had it. We were supposed to leave Sunday morning, but again got delayed. We left much later that afternoon. I was very hopeful that I could avoid it, but by Monday afternoon I too had succumbed to the evil bug. Brandon stayed home from work that day, so as I was getting sick he was feeling better and was able to get the kids from school. I recovered the quickest, but just to be on the safe side I spent Tuesday in bed as well. Thank goodness for raiding my mom's video library. During my two days in bed I was able to watch 4 movies. And I thought I was being a little crazy taking so many (that's about 1/2 of what I took). I'm slowly getting through the rest of them.