Christmas recap

This year was a crazy Christmas-Thursday was the first day in about two weeks where we had the day to ourselves. On December 15th Peter’s brother Sean and his family arrived from Florida (Sean, Amy, Kirk-3yrs, and Heidi-5 mos.). We spent nearly every day with them. We had many fun adventures and really enjoyed spending time with them. Amy took a lot of fun pictures of the kids with her really cool camera. We’ll post when we get them. For being three months older than Connor, Heidi is a real moose! Heidi was roughly the same weight as Connor, so we’ll see if he turns into a moose in the next three months too.

Chris and Mary and their girls Camille-7, Ellie-5 and Claire-3 also came for the festivities. We had a great time playing games with everyone.
Christmas Eve was spent with Peter’s family. Peter made peppermint fudge and peanut brittle-yummy! We had appetizers and socialized with family. There was also the telling and acting out of Jesus’ birth with Connor being baby Jesus, Ellie was the angel, Claire was Joseph, Camille was Mary, Mary who was holding Connor became the manger, Sean was a sheep and Amy was the shepherd. Peter and Laurel were two of the wise men and the rest of us chimed in as well. Oh yes and Kirk was the crocodile. It turned out pretty well-we had a lot of fun! The evening also consisted of reading the first chapter of a biography Peter’s grandma wrote-Chris added quite a bit of commentary to the story, making it absolutely hilarious. Chris also read a letter written by David’s dad-which was the first Christmas letter in a very long time and it described past Christmas and life explorations-it was really neat to hear.
Christmas morning we received the best gift ever-Connor slept 7 hours!!!! It was amazing! I fed him around 11pm, he was asleep at midnight and then didn’t wake up until 7am-that’s a first for us! I woke up at 5 expecting my little alarm clock to wake up too and he didn’t so I went back to sleep, well sort of. I kept anticipating him waking up so I didn’t really want to go back to bed. At 6 I got up for breakfast and then went back to bed. At 7 my little guy started stirring and then was awake. I fed him and then he got to see what Santa left for him. He got a couple outfits, Cookie Monster and Elmo socks, some Dr. Seuss board books and a couple Winnie the Pooh bottles that he’ll be able to use in a couple of months. After we were dressed and ready we headed to Peter’s parents again for presents. Around 9:30 Chris and Mary arrived as well.
Peter and Connor gave me a Cricut Expression, my mom, sister and Chris gave me several cartridges for the Cricut which of course I’ve had fun using. I’ve started putting together some fun pieces for Connor’s scrapbook. I also got Apples to Apples the Disney version. Peter and I also received a Lion House cook book, Tell me the stories of Jesus, The Christmas Oranges DVD, a biography about Peter’s grandma, a car emergency kit, a Chinese decoration, a nativity set, and a nativity stacking doll.
Peter also got a super duper cordless drill, two Chuck Norris t-shirts that are super funny, a sweatshirt, and a train set.
Connor got some clothes, toys, more board books, pacifiers, and a turtle nightlight that projects stars all over the ceiling.

At noon we headed over to my parents house. Joshua-9 and Bubba-5 were anxiously awaiting our arrival so they could open presents. We opened presents and then ate lunch/dinner around 1:30. Santa also left Peter and I stockings at my parents house-which was pretty cool. After dinner we all took a nap. When we woke up we headed back to Peter’s parents house for our second dinner followed by an amusing game of “Apples to Apples Disney Edition” with the nieces followed by “The Game of Things” once the children had been put to bed.
Sunday the 26th Connor was blessed in church since we had family in town. After church Connor and I headed to my parents house to have Christmas again now that Abbie and Rafe were in town. My aunt and uncle arrived late on the 24th and left around 4 on the 26th to head back home. Connor and I got to visit with them a little bit before they left. Then Sunday evening we played another amusing game of “The Game of Things” as we also gave that game to Abbie and Rafe. Seriously a fun game to play with a group of people!

Monday the 27th we got a late start to the day, visited with Abbie and Rafe for almost two hours and then left to go get family pictures taken with Peter’s family in Old Poway Park. We were the first family to arrive so the photographer took our little family photos first. Connor wasn’t very happy in many of our pictures. Sean arrived to save the day with a pacifier and would wait until the photographer was about to take the picture and then pull the pacifier out of Connor’s mouth-this technique worked pretty well. When our pictures were done then the rest of the gang had arrived and we took the big family picture. Now trying to get six children ages of 7, 5, 3, 3, 5mos and 7 weeks to all look good at the same time is down right near impossible. I’m curious to see if everyone looked good in at least one picture. Connor was the best behaved as he was asleep for the whole thing. Camille then comes in second with probably Heidi in third, after that it was a toss up to who was constantly complaining, crying, making funny faces, or picking their nose.
Tuesday the 28th we spent with my family. The 29th we said goodbye to Sean, Amy and the kids then went home to relax-our first day home in a long time!

Today is New Year’s Eve-Now normally I don’t bother with new year’s resolutions as I can never keep them. Like for instance I don’t bother with saying that I’ll stop biting my nails, because yeah that won’t happen, at least not for long. Though I did come up with an idea-I will try to update the blog more often. So there you have it. Happy New Year everyone!