New Year Eve

Our plans to see cousins and my sister and brother were ruined when we looked out the window and saw BLIZZARDY conditions. We hoped the weather forecast would be wrong but unfortunately this time it was right on. So instead of heading to St. George we stayed put here.

The kids had fun playing in the snow for a little while. Besides all the snow it was also really cold—near 0 degrees. They even braved the weather when it was below zero but at those temperatures they don’t last long.

For New Year’s Eve we had root beer floats and put the kids to bed WAY before the new year. Luke and I actually stayed up until midnight this year but barely. The fireworks were going off as we were closing our sleepy eyes.

 

 

 

Our Christmas break TOGETHER

We have enjoyed having Daddy here with us for a week. What fun it is to sleep in, stay in our pajamas all day if we want to, and just really not have a plan in general.

We have stayed up late watching movies—with only the glow of Christmas lights, Micali totally loved this. She thinks it’s magical to turn the lights out and only have Christmas lights or Candle light (we designated Friday nights as candlelight dinners because she loves it so much she wants it to happen every night)

My cousin Cera and her family stopped in for a night on their way to Moab. We really enjoyed visiting and watching the kids play. It was fun to chat and catch up on what we have been up to since getting married, almost seven years ago. We are hoping to make a visit down to see them in Albuquerque some time soon!

We played a lot of games, read books, tickled little ones in our bed, played dragons, made a few yummy treats, enjoyed getting our gifts each night from our generous Secret Santa, rearranged furniture, organized closets, did some deep cleaning.

Most of all we enjoyed just being together as our little family. Eli was so happy when Daddy told him he didn’t have to go to work one morning. He loves to hug his Daddy after breakfast and say “NON’T GO! NON’T GO! When Eli found out daddy was here to stay he was very excited. Daddy Note: the picture of my little man in the Cinderella dress was NOT my idea. I was overruled by the two girls who have voice in the matter and the fact that Micali got Eli all excited to play with her Christmas present.

 

 

 

Baby Abigail’s 1st Christmas

 

  

Christmas Day

I was so excited for Christmas morning that I myself didn’t sleep past 5:30. The kids woke up at 6:30 and I couldn’t wait to take them out and show them the tree. Micali first checked the plate of cookies and milk. She was thrilled that “santa” took time to write her a thank you note. We called each of our families on Skype and let them share in the fun of seeing the kids open a few presents. Micali didn’t really say much about her presents which surprised me. I thought she would be into a lot more. Eli was a little timid in tearing into the paper. He wanted someone else to do it but the when he didn’t have to touch the paper anymore he would get excited. He got a scooter from grandma and grandpa and just hugged it and said “love!” Abigail unwrapped a couple presents before Christmas and also pulled the tree over on herself a few times---I think she had been told “no” so many times that by the time we gave her presents to open she wasn’t sure what to do.

After our early morning waking and excitement we enjoyed a TWO HOUR family nap—we usually tried to have family naps every Sunday but, since August have had church from 12:30-3:30 so that schedule totally ruined that tradition.

Then we got up ready to make our Christmas day feast. We got the ham and apple pie and rolls all ready to put in the oven only to find out our oven no longer worked. Thanks to awesome neighbors we were able to call them and they graciously told us to just use their oven to bake our food. Luke just kept running across the street to check on the food and eventually we were able to enjoy a great meal just a little later than planned. This oven going out actually turned into a HUGE blessing/ Christmas present for me because, the oven was really old and the glass had started getting really HOT to touch like you could easily get burned if you touched the glass on the oven. With a crawler it scared me A LOT. Our landlord tried to get a part to get it fixed but it was the wrong part and finally on Friday after a week out an oven said we could just buy new one and he would pay us for it!! (with a 500 dollar limit) We found one on a great New Year sale and can’t wait to put it to use. My poor family couldn’t be more excited that I will be able to bake some homemade bread and other goodies. You don’t realize how much you use an oven until you don’t have one for two weeks.
 

 

 

Unfortunately there is no cute family picture of us together this Christmas! Definitely going to try to remember that for next year. We were on webcam and had the video camera going most of the time but I need to get more still shots in the future!

Christmas Eve

We enjoyed some very nice weather. It was SUNNY after a week of rain and got up to 50 degrees. I thought I would be sad to not have a white Christmas but when we walked out of the house to go to Cortez for Chinese food without coats I decided I could handle it.

We have adopted Luke’s family tradition of having Chinese food for Christmas Eve. We had to drive an hour but it was so worth it. It was delicious and the kids were so well behaved in the restaurant. Micali ate a lot and totally enjoyed herself. Eli loved looking at the fish in the tank and ate a few pretzels we had taken for Abigail to snack on. He took one bite of rice to get the pretzels and made it seem very painful has he was gagging it down.

This was Eli’s general thought of the food there. –NO THANKS!--

Micali thought the rice shaped like a bear was pretty sweet.

We enjoyed teaching the kids how to open their fortune cookie and reading our fortunes.

We got home just in time to watch the live Nativity. Eli kept signing Brown Donkey the entire time. It was definitely his favorite part. Micali was very disappointed to see that baby Jesus was just a doll.

 

We came home and made sparkly oats for the reindeer, read the Night Before Christmas and then the kids got to open up their new Christmas PJs from Aunt Lois and Uncle Steve. Eli has hardly wanted to take off his Toy Story pajamas since.

Oh and how could I forget…We also set out some cookies and milk for Santa.