Playing catchup

We had such a wonderful whirlwind Christmas and New Year. We had so much fun with everyone together. It was a really nice Christmas. On Christmas night as I was getting ready to go to bed, I remembered the scene on "A Christmas Story" when Ralphie's parents were sitting quiet alone by the Christmas tree, enjoying the moment after all the chaos of preparation and planning and shopping for Christmas, and I went outside and had a quiet moment where I felt peace, and I knew clearly in my heart the true meaning of Christmas. I am so grateful for my Savior, and the gift of life and salvation he has given to me and the opportunity I have to have to be with my family eternally. It was a really good Christmas feeling of gratitude for my family and my life and all the blessings I have been given.

Here are the girls when we went to Temple lights in Mesa. I love these pictures, Audrey is actually smiling!


As for the late post, after my new year partying and then recovering from the partying, I managed to get sick. Not unlike many of my family members before me (3 trips to E.R. for fevers, vomiting and the like) I had to go and get an ear infection and mastitis. Hit me like a steam engine. Now that I'm vertical again, or partially, I get to catch up. I took today off work because I am sick enough, but well enough to do some catch up on the computer.

On Christmas Eve, we went to Tim's family for a sweet nativity act with the kiddos and family gift exchange. I loved seeing Audrey play the part of Mary and she held the baby doll so sweetly.

Emma was a shepherd girl and I could see in her eyes she understood that playing that part was important. Then we had a drop by of Santa! He took time out of his busy schedule to see us. It was great! Everyone sat on his lap!!
We went home to catch Santa in the act of leaving presents at our house! As the girls rushed to bed so he would come back to leave more, we heard him laugh, "HO! HO! HO!" outside the window. It was so exciting for the girls. Here is typical Audrey...Here are all the kids watching Santa on the radar. They were mezmerized!

Christmas morning the girls tore through their presents in only 30 minutes. Emma surprised Tim and me with a calendar she made at school with her handprint on every page, decorated for the month. It was so special, she kept it a secret and Tim and I were both so touched. Audrey got a killer doll house, and Emma got a really cool art Easel.



Christmas day and for the next few days we spent at my parents house with all of my family. We have a huge family now! 39 and counting. Amazingly nobody was pregnant (or didn't say they were when asked). It is amazing. We had family pictures taken by my good friend Aften Wright and we discovered she dated one of my cousins years ago and has even been to Mack's Inn with us. Silly coincidence huh?

We went to Rawhide with everyone, and Emma acutally wore her "cowgirl" hat and loved it. We then went to my sister's church for dinner and an amazing game of "office chair hockey" My stomach still hurts from laughing so hard.

I went over to my folks house on the 30th and played games with my mom and nieces and it was a BLAST! Thanks to Sam, Tess, Molly, Zoe, Bryn, and Baylee for a great round of Scrabble (my first 48 point word score) and Skip-BO. You all rock!

For New Years Eve we had Tara and Rob over for munchies and Guitar Hero. It was fun and I can't beleive a new year has already begun. All the while playing, I noticed Kennedy wasn't where I left her! She started crawling on New Year's Eve! Wahoo!

On New Years Day we went to see Tim's folks and we played a little "Wii" and that was fun too. Video games have come so far since Atari, man I loved Atari.

I got a tip from my sis-in-law about potty training for Audrey, and 3 days and only 2 accidents later, she is there! We are so excited she is out of diapers finally, and she gets offended when we want to put a pull up on her for night time. Next week we'll ditch the pull ups, they are my crutch, not her's and I don't have energy right now to wash sheets everyday.

So here we are now, and Emma is back in school and as life starts to get back to a routine, I hope I can keep the spirit of the Holidays with me, all of the thinking of others and spending time with family, and shaking up the routine just enough to keep me out of my comfort zone. It makes me think of the saying about the Gospel, it "comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable" May that be my mantra as I teach my kids about missionary work and being good examples. Until then.