Christmas Eve...

One of the reasons I love Christmas is because it is all about family... thinking of gifts for your family, planning holiday parties with your family, baking and decorating with family, and best of all spending the time with your family! It is SO fun and I look forward to it all year long! This year we spent Christmas Eve with my side of the family. We had our traditional evening starting with a lovely dinner of Chicken a La King complete with burning candles on each plate and steaming hot chocolate. Delicious! Then we all gathered downstairs for the Nativity. We just started doing it again now that we have so many little grandkids. Mom sewed beautiful costumes for each part -unfortunately due to our lack of girls, the angel costumes remain unused! But Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, the shepherds and wise men were all adorable! Gabe was a little wiseman and was as cute as a button (I took at least a dozen pictures of him)! He was the only one of the Three Amigos to remain in costume! My Dad read from the bible as each actor entered the scene on cue... it was chaos at its best! Haha - I loved every minute! I can't say I got much out of the story unfortunately... I was too engrossed in watching the shepherds milling around with their big sticks poking everyone and TJ the big wiseman trying to corral my little wandering wiseman! Baby Jack was the best behaved - he was definitely a meek and darling little Christ child throughout the confusion! It was so fun! Here is Mary on her donkey...hee hee! What a cheesy grin! And check out the gift this little wiseman is bringing... a fo-ball!!

Next we all sang Christmas songs (the absolute best being the 12 days of Christmas as we all get to listen to each others' solos) and read Christmas stories...all the while stuffing ourselves with chocolates, caramels and shortbread cookies. Eventually we put the babies to bed and finished off our traditional evening by watching The Christmas Carol (with George C. Scott - the best version). It was a perfect Christmas Eve!

Gabe is playing cars on Daddy's leg... with sound effects and all (hence the "bpbpbpbpb" face)!

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow!!

Well it's certainly going to be a white Christmas! Yeah - I'm so excited! If it's going to be cold and miserable for half the year, bring on the white stuff! Especially for Christmas - without snow it's just not the same. I have always loved snow storms... the peaceful, quiet ones or the wild blizzards! The best is having the opportunity to just relax and watch the big fat snowflakes spiral to the ground and cover everything up. It makes the world so beautiful. On Monday Gabe discovered the joy of watching it snow from the coziness of our living room window! I looked up to see him just grinning out the window, pointing and exclaiming about all the big snowflakes! It was so adorable I had to snap a few pics! What a man after my own heart!

I couldn't post today without adding some pictures of sweet Jack! Here he is in his "tanning bed" at home and then snuggled up in a blankey after the Dr said he had baked enough! What a darling little bean bag - I just love newborns! However, I must say, I don't envy poor Mindy her sleepless nights!

And here is my favorite picture....Gabe found an exciting new toy to play with while Mommy held his little cousin!! Mindy and I laughed so hard! He loved that donut and walked around with it like a necklace all afternoon! I have to add that Gabe is such a sweetheart with Jack. He is never jealous and comes over once in a while to pat him and say "baby!" - I can't believe he was my newborn only 19 months ago. They grow too fast!

Jack McConnell

Baby Jack has finally arrived! Weighing in at 10 lbs 7 oz, he gave his mother a run for her money trying to get him here! Poor little Mindy is actually SuperWoman with a core of steel! What an amazing woman she was pushing for hours and never giving up! Finally with the aid of forceps and vacuum, "little" Jack arrived...with barely a heartbeat. All of us in the delivery room had about 10 years scared off our lives as we had to watch the medical professionals resuscitate our sweet baby. Just like what Griff wrote on their blog, Jack's first cry was the sweetest sound to hear!! I'm crying just thinking about it. I have rarely seen such a traumatic delivery (and you all know traumatic or high-risk deliveries are all I get to see for the most part... esp you work friends). Of course it makes it 100x worse when it's your baby sister but still. Wow. It was all I could do not to jump in and take over - haha! Little did those poor nurses know that I was critically watching their every move, just waiting for a clue that they needed help! They did very well of course and I think I did too...besides that one time when I had to correct the respiratory therapist about how poorly she was bagging! (There could not have been a seal since first she was bagging his cheek, then she had the mask half over his mouth so his bottom lip was out!! Aaaaah! She was not happy with me for pointing it out but how am I supposed to stand there watching that?!!) For the benefit of my friends at work reading this I will say that they gave chest compressions for a full minute...and yet his apgars were 1, 9 then 10!!! AND given all that he had not one problem with his blood sugars, nor any more issues at all. Both the OB and the Neonatologist (they have one in-house at Timp) were very surprised at how well he did considering. It was a miracle. I know Heavenly Father loves us and is aware of everything... through Him my little nephew is safe now. I couldn't be more grateful for my understanding of prayer and the gift of the Gospel in my life. Congratulations Malinda and Griff... Jack is absolutely beautiful!!!!

(This pictures says a thousand words... if you can imagine the relief and happiness we all felt at this moment. Poor Jack doesn't look too happy though! What a rough start, little darling!!) Look at those cheeks...aaaaaaah! So cute!!
We all came to cheer Mindy on in the beginning of that long day... aren't those 3 little boys cute!

I'M FREE!!

... of clothes, that is!! Mindy and Griff invited us over for dinner and a movie the other night with Matt and Amy. It was so fun to watch little Wesley and Gabe go crazy together! They were running around, laughing, and talking...the best part was they weren't even really interacting, just feeding off each other! While we were getting them ready for bed, we let them run around in their diapers for awhile - they were so excited! It was hilarious! Gabe is getting quite the little tummy but it still can't compare to Wesley's belly! Here is a picture of Matt teaching Gabe where his (belly) "button" is:

And here is one with Aunt Mindy and Gabe... both their tummies are impressive! :) Although you may have to just take my word for it since the pic doesn't catch them at the right angle! (We are so excited for baby Jack to get here...)

We had such a fun time hanging out with everyone. We are so lucky to have such wonderful family... my best friends will always be my family!

Gaberish

That is the language that Gabe speaks fluently. Unfortunately Eric and I don't know a word of it! But it's fun having pretend conversations with him all day! Luckily Gabe does throw in the occasional word in English (although pronunciation is not his strong point yet). My favorite is Teez which I always thought meant Cheese and wondered why he used it every time he wanted something ...until I figured out today that it means Please!! What a darling! He also LOVES football - just like Daddy - and excitedly yells Fo-ball! when he sees it on TV, on his clothes, or an actual football. I was in Costco the other day and he saw a FB game on all the bigscreens - he was so excited! Here is another funny story about FB... lately he has been a huge Mama's boy and so he cries when left with Daddy. (Poor Daddy) One evening Eric could not get him to stop crying - he was trying all his favorite things like playing ball, reading a book, and even trying cartoons on TV. Well, no luck until Eric said "wanna watch football?" and Gabe said Fo-ball! and settled right down on the couch to watch a game with Daddy. How funny is that?!

Since I know you all are dying to know how the walking is going (haha)... Gabe is a little walking machine! It hit me today that my baby is truly a toddler now. Wow. He is so cute booking it all over the house - it's amazing how much more trouble he gets into now! I love it though. He looks like he is having so much fun all day. One of my favorites to watch is when he plays with Denali. He climbs right on her or just has a nice talk with her while patting her back. One of his favorite things about her is her cool paws...the pads look just like buttons and he can't resist pushing each one when they catch his attention! Luckily she is his little pal - he even played hide and seek with her yesterday! Of course it was a little one-sided but Gabe was having the time of his life! (Nali just sat and watched him curiously with her head tilted like she was trying to figure out what the heck he was doing hiding behind the coffee table then popping out giggling over and over!) I could watch that little man all day - he is SO fun!!

Christmas toes!

My sister Melanie has a sweet tradition of giving us all pedicures when we're pregnant...right before the big day! I'm talking about the real thing too... the soak, scrub, buffing, polishing and decoration!! Since Mindy is due tomorrow... we had a little pampering party last night. I even got a pedicure since Melanie didn't get to give me one before Gabe was born (she was 7 months pregnant herself)! Of course I tried to talk her out of it but she insisted... and it was so fun! Now we all have our holiday toes and we're ready for Christmas! We had so much fun drinking frozen hot chocolate and watching Elf. (I thought that movie was so funny and usually I hate silly comedies. Must have been the fun company!) I just love spending time with girl friends...especially my darling sisters! *in case you can't see the fabulous details, I have Christmas trees and Mel and Mindy did candy canes and snowflakes - so cute!

Keeping busy having lots of FUN!

Erin has been here for a nice long visit...which is wonderful since we hardly ever get to see her and her little family since they live so far away in Michigan. We have had sooooo much fun horseback riding, seeing Twilight, exploring parks, going to Mindy's baby showers (yeah!), watching football, seeing the Christmas lights downtown, and just spending good old quality time together! I have loved every minute of having my little sister here. Her baby Eliza is our only girl and so I (along with everyone else) have been smothering her with loves and kisses - what a sweet little doll! And her big brother Benjamin has been keeping us all laughing with his 3 year old antics! He has been having particular fun with his cousin Bridger...now there are 2 of them to fight back the 3 amigos that torment them! (or maybe it's the big boys that torment the little guys...hmmm...who can tell?!) Well, here are just a few of the hundreds (not kidding) of pictures we took this past 2 weeks!