However, last Christmas is one of those major life events that needs chronicalling, no matter how late.
We spent Christmas Eve day at home, trying to accomplish too many things at the same time - finishing up Christmas gifts, wrapping and making rolls for Christmas Eve dinner with the Merrills.
At least one of us had the right idea!
We had a great time at the Merrills, as always. Eileen was there with Corbin and his grandparents and Bridgette was there as well. I believe Daniel had to work that night. Callie was very sad that he wasn't able to be there.
Yvonne made a spectacular ham. Can't say the rolls were all that fabulous. As is usually the case for me, when I try to plan it so my yeast breads are piping hot and fresh from the oven just in time to put out, nothing rises other than emergencies that delay kneading or dividing dough. Oh well. At least they were edible. We'll try again on a lesser occasion.
After dinner, we played a couple of games and hung out in the living room with everyone. The other kids entertained Timmy on the little princess couch. I love these pictures. Eight months old and his feet don't even touch the edge of the couch! His feet look weird but it's just because his legs are short and the pants are long.
He was super smiley. He LOVED that couch!
And the girls loved the dress-up clothes. At least I think they did. Not sure about Callie's sad face. Maybe she wanted to be Aurora instead of Cinderella all the time.
Or maybe she was just plain tired. We probably missed naptime that day too. It's taken us a while to get any semblance of a routine together. Sleep is definitely a priority for us but there are always plenty of night wakings and doctor visits to throw us off.
We got home around 8pm. I was hoping to get the house (at least the living room) cleaned for Christmas morning but I hadn't even wrapped a single present yet so I spent the next few hours wrapping presents and nursing Timmy. I finally got the stockings put out at 1am.
Santa gave each of the kids a Dr. Seuss book he found on a steal at Kohl's and Timmy a signing book and "The Going to Bed Book" by Sandra Boynton. The kids also received the book series of Candyland, Cootie and Chutes and Ladders.
Here are James's and my stockings. (I know, whatever happened to all the My Little Ponies?)
Our beautiful Christmas tree. We debated for a long time whether or not to put one up. Although this was our 10th Christmas, James and I have never spent Christmas at our own house. (I started putting up Christmas trees for the first time 2 years ago. Our first "big" tree went up in 2009 but the balls all migrated to the top half.) After going back and forth on whether we would stay or leave, we determined that this was the year. With all of Timmy's paraphernalia and gifts for four children to haul, we decided not to haul any gifts, sleep in our own beds, get up whenever everyone was ready and just have Christmas morning at our house.
Yep, even got the lights up outside. I love having lights on my house. So festive. Even in 70-degree weather!
The kids made the ornaments for the tree. Beautiful, functional and fragrant!
Melissa helped the kids make the cinnamon-applesauce ornaments one day while I cleaned. The kids had a blast! And the house smelled amazing! (It takes a lot of cinnamon so I highly recommend utilizing the dollar store!)
I love watching kids focus intently on a project.
Very messy hands! This can be a bit of a messy project. But well worth the clean up!
Christmas Morning
Everyone was up around 7:30am. Personally, I know I could have gone a bit longer, but when the first kid wakes up, usually the others aren't long to follow.
Callie admiring her dress-up jewelry from Landon. (It's a tradition in my family to rotate names so I thought I would get us started last year as well. We've always enjoyed it and it makes more sense to me than drawing names.)
Pretty sure Callie was the first one up...
Such fun to watch your kids open presents! Timmy was asleep for the most part of the present opening so it was also nice to be able to focus completely on those who have the skill to rip open the wrapping paper.
Landon opening the kick ball he got from Trevy.
Landon showing off his watercolor set. Note the orange in his right hand. Our kids LOVE oranges. I remember Santa stuffing the toes of our stockings with oranges when we were growing up. Not all of the oranges got eaten by their owners. Pretty sure more made their way back into the refrigerator. Definitely not the case around here! Santa also decided to add a special honeycrisp apple to each stocking. I think he (or she *wink wink*) is addicted! And when you get to put together your own stocking, you might as well enjoy it!
The kids were very into the present-opening. They enjoyed seeing what was inside, but could hardly wait to rip into the next gift. It was hard to explain to them that there is an end to the present opening.
Missa came to join us for breakfast and brought a few more presents.
I blame the camera. Not sure why some of these photos don't look more professional. =)
Trevy received a pair of pajamas.
Callie received bath crayons.
And refused to hold still for a better picture. (Crazy how much this little girl loves to dance at home but I can't get her to go into a dance class. Oh well.)
Landon got a jacket with a little robot on it. I felt bad because it (obviously) has long sleeves and he was so not into long sleeves at the time. Little did I know that we would have a hard freeze a couple of months later and I wouldn't be able to get the thing off him!
For Timmy. He was still in newborns at the time, although the jammies were getting a bit short, so size really didn't matter.
Cutest present ever!
After breakfast, James was eager to get on the road so that he could make it to his parents' house in time to talk to Ammon. While he was loading up, someone (guessing Landon) got hold of the camera. I'm often amazed at the shots they get. It's fun to see things from their perspective again.
James did make it to talk to Ammon. He took the twins with him. It took me a while longer to get everything else ready to go, nurse Timmy and get myself and Trevy on the road. In fact, I turned around twice to get things I had forgotten for Timmy before we were able to keep going.
I called James to let him know that I was running a little later than I had planned. (Wish I had written this sooner but I think Ammon called around 11 and I was planning on leaving Tucson at noon. I didn't make it out until after one.) Oddly enough, James was still in Benson himself. As he was driving, Landon had opened the door of the Honda. So James had gotten out to flip down (or up, I don't know right off) the child lock on the door. No sooner had he closed the door and gone to walk back around the car to get back in when he heard the click of Landon locking the door. Locking one door locks them all so James was then locked out. With the car running and both kids strapped into their car seats inside. Wish I could say that I had the spare remote to the Honda on my keychain and was able to save the day but someone, no names mentioned, had misplaced his ... or her! ... keys a week or so prior and had borrowed my set of keys to the Honda and had left them in the console. Consequently, both sets of keys were locked inside.
One car stopped to help. The guy said that he works or worked at some auto place or a lock shop or something along those lines. In any case, he knew how to get into cars. Alas, even he couldn't get the door open. (Who carries a Slim Jim with them anyway, right?)
Meanwhile, Callie was crying inside. She just wanted to go or get out. Can't say I blame her. James was almost livid and I couldn't think of any way to help. We worked and racked our brains for at least 20 minutes. Fortunately, Landon rescued himself. He figured out how to extract himself from his car seat and we coaxed him into climbing into the driver's seat. It took another 20 minutes or so to get Landon to figure out how to push the unlock button up. James had that door open as soon as he pushed it, though!
Moral of the story, don't close the door if your keys and kids are inside. Or, if you must, remove the keys first!
We arrived at my parents' house around 4 in the afternoon. All of my siblings were already there. Still such fun when we're all able to get together. Not sure we all fit in my parents' house anymore, though. Especially with three weddings last year and three babies due this year!
Our sweet sleepy baby.
Sweet brothers. Landon LOVES being a big brother.
He's so good at it! It's going to be fun watching these two over the next few years!
Cousin Dillon. So cute!
One of my favorite things is watching the kids pretend they're James and me. One afternoon Callie tucked Landon in and sang "The Snowman Song" like I do when I'm tucking them in bed. So sweet!
Grandma had another special surprise. A number of purchases at the office had come in bubble wrap so she had saved it for an afternoon with the grandkids.
Unfortunately, some of the bubbles were virtually unpoppable. =( Darn those upgrades!
So Aunt Cindy stepped in to try to show the kids how it's done. Please note the running man technique!
And they resorted to the twisting method. (Seriously thinking the camera was just being temperamental over the past few months. No idea why these didn't turn out better.)
Our little model. She even poses like one!
We stayed through New Years. Cindy and Justin and Steve had planned on heading out the day before and spending New Years Eve with the Fulpses before continuing on to their own homes. As it turned out, that just was not meant to be.
Christmas was on a Saturday last year. A day or two after Christmas, Landon randomly threw up. He has done that before when he hasn't chewed his food particularly well so I didn't think much of it. However, he did it another time and then Callie started the next day.
We are big game players in our family. When we all get together we stay up too late most nights playing games. The following night, Wednesday night, was no exception. I remember being so tired when I finally had Timmy down and we were finished playing games and I could finally go to bed. James and Amy had both had to leave earlier in the week to go back to work. Makayla was staying in the "grandkid room" with me and my kids. No sooner had my head hit the pillow when I heard her throw up. It's so sad when the temptation comes to just pretend you didn't hear anything. But I did get up and turned the hall light on so I could see her. Such a relief that there was just a little on the pillowcase.
Or so I thought. I had Makayla sit up so I could change her pillowcase and discovered that she had it in her hair and on her blankets too. She had been asleep and wasn't particularly happy that I woke her up to clean her up. She just wanted her mom. I felt so bad for her. I think everyone just wants their mom when they don't feel well. It was pretty late so I knew Amy was already in bed and there wasn't anything she could do if we called her anyway.
The next day was pretty uneventful along the illness lines. James came back. In the middle of the night, Timmy's monitor went off a couple of times. Leads. At one point when I crawled back into bed, I remember my stomach feeling very unsettled and thinking, "Oh no." Sure enough. The guys and Cindy went to play volleyball that morning and I threw up while they were gone. Which wasn't terribly long. When they got back, I learned that Steve had been sick that morning too and Justin was really not feeling well. Poor guy. I think the vomiting got the worst out of my system. I still felt slightly squeamish and the thought of food wasn't particularly appealing, but I only had to run for the bathroom once. Such was not the case for Justin. I think he threw up at the church and then just made it home. Things just got worse for him throughout the day and he didn't feel better the next day. A curse for him, but a blessing for the rest of us because then we got to keep Cindy and Steve for New Years Eve games. (They did make it out the following day.)
Unbelievably, Timmy rang in his first New Years. We were playing the Bang! The Bullet game we'd given to Steve for Christmas and he just refused to go down. (It's a trifle hard to concentrate on that game with a wiggly one.) Overall, fun times had by all! (Except Justin...)
We also returned home on New Years Day. Proud to say I got the loot pictures taken the day after. I'm not sure how the tradition started, but my mom took "loot pictures" of us all growing up. They were kind of a pain. You had to look nice and haul all your stuff out in front of the tree and have a picture taken with it. Now, however, it's fun to be able to look back and see exactly when you got what and, more importantly, validate claims to certain items that two parties remember receiving.
THE LOOT PICTURES
Timmy's first loot picture.
What a dapper dude!
Check out the Christmas dresses James's mom made. She made each of the little granddaughters (all 7) a matching one!
Callie wasn't really in the mood. Can't say as I blamed her. I never enjoyed the loot pictures either at the time. But take them we did!
Thanks Cheer Bear!
Landon was more than happy to cooperate. He loved the kickball!
Such a poser!
Just look at those baby blues!
THE WARD CHRISTMAS PARTY - 12/11/10
Another fun annual event. They had some really cute games.
The snowman toss. The kids got to try to toss a snowman puppet through the holly rings.
We may have cheated just a bit...
And the reindeer races. You got a candy cane and pipe cleaners to create your own reindeer. Then you hooked the candy cane on the line and raced somebody.
Amazing how fast the memory fades! Five months seems like such a long time ago! Somehow I've got to get better at blogging more frequently. But not tonight...
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