Holidays and Stuff

Well, between a totally hectic Christmas season (now I know why people get Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving -- so they can actually enjoy all of the other stuff going on in December instead of being a total stress case! I thought people just liked to brag and look like they were really on top of things or something), working a lot of hours, being addicted to my Kindle (and so spending my spare minutes at night reading instead of blogging), and having two crazy kids -- this has gotten seriously out of date. But inasmuch as our kids are still exceedingly cute and we've been up to a lot of fun things lately, I feel a blogging frenzy coming on. I'll start with the holidays.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving in Utah -- all of my siblings were there so it was great.

Joseph loved playing with his cousins and this was the first time we've all been together where he's been old enough to really play with them on his own without any supervision, so they would play all day together in the basement and had a lot of fun. He also enjoyed playing outside in the snow/ice. Oh, how that boy wants a backyard! Primarily because he is under a very mistaken impression that we will get a dog once we have a yard. But also because he loves to play outside.

Todd enjoyed playing board games with his brothers-in-law (since I don't really play board games -- they stress me out and I have enough stress in my life at work).

I enjoyed reading and chatting with my sisters. And I enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner, which was temporarily in crisis when our oven turned to a smoking monster but turned out great.

Audrey enjoyed ATTENTION, as usual. She also mastered the art of pulling herself up on furniture at Grandma White's house, leading to Todd's prophetic insight that she would be walking by the New Year. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

And evidently, we took only one picture during the entire Thanksgiving trip. Oops.

Christmas

We continued a lot of fun Christmas traditions this season. Decorating was fun because for the first time, Joseph really was able to help put Christmas ornaments on the tree. (Though we had to put them very high out of Audrey's reach.) We did an advent calendar where every night we got a piece of a nativity and read a scripture about Jesus. We made (well, "assembled") a ginger bread house; Christmas cookies of many varieties; visited the lights and nativity at the San Diego Temple; attended Joseph's very first preschool program (which went even worse than we had anticipated -- Joseph refused to participate and cried the whole time); went to a really cool live Nativity at Joseph's preschool (complete with a great petting zoo, llama rides, crafts, stories, etc.); had a Christmas party with Joseph's cousins; and visited Santa at our church Christmas party. Probably some other stuff, too.

Another thing that was really fun about this Christmas is that Joseph decided himself what gifts he wanted to get everyone in the family. Totally unprompted, he decided to get Dad a razor, Mom some jewelry, and Audrey some "pretend" jewelry. It was fun taking him shopping and so adorable that he picked gifts for everyone. And did a pretty good job at it, too!

Joseph was also very excited about Santa Claus. We had a lot of fun leaving cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer on Christmas Eve -- but Joseph did NOT want any presents. Anytime we asked him what he wanted, he said "ANYTHING!" Which actually means "nothing" in Joseph-speak. We got him some presents anyway and he didn't seem too disappointed about that in the end.

Todd and I went through a parental rite of passage on Christmas Eve -- Todd stayed up ALL NIGHT LONG putting together the kids' toy from Santa -- a play kitchen. (I stayed up till 2 making breakfast but knew I wouldn't be any help with the kitchen and so went to bed.) But it was all worth it to see how excited the kids (even Audrey) were about the kitchen and to watch them play with it together.

After we did our own Christmas thing we went up to Todd's parents and had Christmas with his whole family. Once again Joseph loved playing with his cousins, who are so sweet with him.

All in all it was a wonderful Christmas season -- but this year I'm getting everything done before Thanksgiving for sure ... so that I can spend more time baking cookies and looking at Christmas lights during December.