December Happenings

I don't know where the month of December went but it has come and gone and I have very few pictures to show for it. All our family left (Erik's mom and step-dad who live nearby even left for 2 wks) and Erik was back at work so I was on my own with 3 little ones and I didn't go anywhere. I actually did take the kids to our church Christmas party by myself, but only because I knew that I'd have tons of help (we have a good ward and AMAZING friends in it). Fortunately the boys slept through the whole thing and J's nursery leaders took her along with their own bunch to the activities (they did a "Polar Express" theme for the kids- and it would have been too hard to push the boys around for the whole thing) and I was able to sit and visit with some friends. Sometime during the month, I had both boys propped up next to each other in the Boppy pillow and W decided that he was hungry (that kid is always hungry) so he started sucking on C's head. Erik switched positions at work in the early part of the month. He's no longer on Patrol, he's in a division called IFR (don't ask me what that means) it's an investigative division. We like it, especially since he had a 4 day weekend over Christmas. On Christmas Even we went to a Hot Cocoa social at my dear friend Sarah's house, when that was done we went home for our own little Christmas Eve celebrations. We had a ham dinner, watched the Church's Nativity DVD and read the Christmas story from Luke and read a few other Christmas stories, then put the little ones to bed (at their usual hour I might add). And then it was time for Santa to get busy - wasn't able to do as much as he's wanted to because it was raining. On Christmas morning, J came and woke us up around 7. She played with her Santa gifts while I made breakfast. We ate and then made our way over to the tree. I didn't get too many pictures Christmas morning, blame it on lack of sleep or simply enjoying watching J and her excited. All J wanted for Christmas was a unicorn and a pony. Whenever anyone asked her that's what she would say. You'd ask her if she wanted anything else and she'd say no. Well, Santa came through, he found her a unicorn and a pony (thank goodness My Little Pony is coming back). Knowing J and her love to bounce, he also brought her a trampoline (which she loves, especially when she can get Daddy to jump on it with her). Unwrapping the gifts took us a while because we made J try to "read" the names on them, but it also made it more enjoyable to sit and watch each other open our gifts. Like I said, all J wanted was a unicorn and a pony, and likewise, all she thought her Daddy needed was a boy unicorn (no pony for him). We lucked out and found a boy unicorn (thank goodness for Toy Story 3 toys). J and I found it about a week before Christmas and she was able to keep it a secret for the entire week. she was SOOO excited for her Daddy to open her gift.

She was really good at tearing the paper this year, though she did have to make sure every scrap of paper was off the gift before she was done.

One of J's gifts was wrapped in a diaper box (we have plenty of those lying around so might as well take advantage and use them) when she got the paper off she was quite bothered, she said that the gift wasn't for her it was for her brothers. It took some convincing to get her to open the box. J was quite spoiled this year, along with her Santa gifts she got twin baby dolls with a double stroller, a clickstart computer, a little people house with a mini van and some games and puzzles. The boys had 2 gifts under the tree some Texans socks and then a couple of outfits. We later got them a jumperroo and bumbo seats with gift cards that they got. Erik and I had set a limit on how much we were going to spend on each other, I stuck to our budget, I framed his signed Craig Biggio jersey and got him a large bag of pistachios. Erik didn't listen. He got me a Ninja food processor and a Nook, and helped J pick out a watch for me. The boys weren't much into the excitement of Christmas this year. In fact, W was so out of it that j threw wrapping paper on his head and it didn't even phase him.

Christmas afternoon we went over to our friends the Goebel's house for a few hours to play games and visit before heading over to Erik's mom's for Christmas dinner. It was a very relaxed and enjoyable Christmas.