Christmas and More!

I'm glad it's March and I can finally blog about Christmas . You know what they say about better late than never, right?

 

Christmas was great. We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas Eve with the Riddle Family (Greg's mom's crew). Grandma Riddle asked us to coordinate a Nativity scene for the kids. This is always my favorite part of Christmas Eve with my family and I was so excited to start this fun tradition with Greg's family.

 

Behold the 3 Wise Guys...Josh, Garrett, and Matt.



 

Carson and Emma made a great Mary and Joseph.

Cutest Little Angel you ever saw...

Doesn't Reese make an awesome baby Jesus?

 

Shortly after this picture was taken, I started feeling really sick. Like, "I'm going to pass out or barf if I don't lay down ASAP." I grabbed Reese and ran to the Mother's Lounge (we were at a Church). I barely made it before I started puking. It was awful. I texted Greg and told him I was sick and just to tell everybody I was feeding the baby and to cover for me. I stayed in there barfing for another hour or so until the party ended and everybody left. Santa was planning to make his deliveries to our house, so we had no choice but to make the drive home. I was miserable, but we made it.

 

Moms really shouldn't be sick on Christmas. I had so looked forward to this day all year--the kids are at the cutest ages and I knew it was just going to be magical--and now I was barfing. Not cool. I felt yucky all night, but did feel a bit better in the morning and while I was still queasy, I was able to enjoy the day. (Side note--it ended up being a nasty little bug that hit 15 members of our extended family throughout the Christmas break. It came on quick and made us miserable for a day or so, but the recovery was quick and thankfully it wasn't any worse than that. ) 

Christmas Morning...it was awesome. Here you can see the kids in their Christmas jammies. Normally I would have taken a cute picture with them on Christmas Eve in front of the Christmas tree, but it wasn't happening that night. We decided to bypass the original matching jammies and get Abby a Rapunzel nightgown instead. Best decision ever! She loved it and spent most of the Christmas break in it and has worn it basically every night since then.



Garrett was like a movie character on Christmas morning. Everything was "just what I always wanted" and "Oh thank you, Santa! I just wish you were here so I could hug you." Like I said, I knew it was going to be magical and the kids did not disappoint. 

Grandpa Willy and Grandma Jan, Mike, and Matt stayed over and were there to share the morning with us. We loved having them there and they agreed there is nothing better than sharing Christmas morning with kids. 

Sadly this is the best picture I got of Reese's first Christmas...did I mention I wasn't exactly at the top of my game?

 

This was THE BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER! My brother, Brett and his wife, Chelsea, live in Connecticut and were expecting a baby on December 30. There was no way they could come home for Christmas and we were so sad and were missing them. We all went down to my parents' house for a Christmas Breakfast. Brett texted and said they were leaving to go to a friend's house and wanted to know if we could Skype while the whole family was there. We hooked the computer up to the TV so everybody could see them and were shocked when this picture came on the screen. We all started screaming and a few tears were even shed. Chelsea had gone into labor that morning and progressed really quickly. When they realized it was going to happen so fast, they decided just to wait until she was born and surprise everybody. Little McKall is beautiful and such a sweet blessing in our family. It was the talk of the season and will always be one of our favorite Christmas memories.  

Abby had really wanted this little Princess stable toy. She was thrilled with her presents from Santa, but was sad and told me, "I really wanted the Princess stable. Santa must have forgotten me." It ripped my heart out, but I knew she would be getting it later from her grandparents and I just told her Christmas was a special day with lots of surprises and to keep believing in the magic of Christmas. She was so excited when she opened it. 

 

Having my parents home from China was the best part of the Christmas season. Grandpa Sparky got to finally meet Reese and the two of them became quite fond of each other. 

We enjoyed the rest of the day just hanging out with the family. The kids loved playing with their new toys and it is always great just to be together. 

We were so excited to watch the Aggies play in the Poinsettia Bowl the day after Christmas. My parents got all the kids matching Aggie hats for the big game. Too bad I passed my stomach bug on to my dad and he spent the night barfing and missed the party. Seriously, the world's greatest Aggie fan who has supported the team through 60 years of crappy football moves to China and misses one of their best seasons ever and then is home to watch the bowl game with his family and has to get sick? Sad. At least they won the game--that helped a bit! 

We got decked out and went to SLC for a BYU bowl game party the next night. I forgot my camera, but the game was kind of a downer so it's probably for the best.

 

New Year's Eve was grand, as always. We took the kids to see "Frozen" and then headed to Ric and Paula's for the annual party. We banged pots and pans, drank egg nog, and toasted in great things for 2014. Bring it on!!!