Christmas Goings On

It feels like Jon and I have been married for a lot more than four Christmases.  But true enough, this was only our fourth Christmas.  Although our first Christmas together was spent four days before our wedding and we were both puking our brains out.  Ah, good memories :)

Back to this year.  It was our first year without family, even though we've been at school/clinicals the past two years.  We've always made it back to Utah for Christmas.  So I did my best to make it special for the kids.  It was a good practice year, but there is lots I could do to improve. 

While my parents were in town, we went to the live nativity and saw Santa.  On December 8th, we went to the Springfield Christmas parade.  Sorry folks, no pics.  Even though we carried the darn camera everywhere and Jon even hid it in his shirt for awhile since some crazy was casing it out.  We failed to snap a single pic.  It was mostly due to the pure intense craziness that was happening.  In Florida, they had a Thanksgiving and Christmas parade and NO ONE went.  Literally, you could walk up to where the parade was and have a seat and there wouldn't be anyone within arm's reach of you.  Haha.  Not here.  They get crazy about their parades.  And I'm pretty sure there were more adults than kids.  And the adults were WAY crazier than the kids.  At one point, we decided to cross the street at a breaking point in the parade.  I had to push my way to the front of the mass of people and politely ask to get through.  People were just ignoring me.  Finally I bumped someone with the stroller and asked to cross the street.  The lady turned to me and said "You can't!  There is a parade going on!"  I am pretty sure I looked at this woman like she was nuts but refrained from saying the first thing that came to my mind.  It may or may not have been a phrase I hear now and then with a small cuss word and something about Sherlock :)

It ended up great though because we finally ran into the Doughertys and had lunch with them at a yummy Mexican restaurant, maybe like Maria's or something?  Their salsa was spaghetti sauce wishing it were salsa but their fish tacos were killer.  SO good.  That makes two Mexican joints worth eating at here.  Take that Cafe Rio!  (Although it still may be the best)

Next up, I splurged on an Elf.  Er, I mean, Santa sent an elf to our house to watch over the kids and report back to Santa.  Our elf wasn't into mischief because I didn't really get the point of having a mischevious elf.  He is supposed to report whether they kids are naughty or nice, isn't he?  Anyway, definitely could have done better on that one, but we had a few clever ones.  The kids really liked it when we did something cute.  And they enjoyed finding him.  They talk about him now that he's gone so I guess it was worth it.  His name was Zinc.

We also did a Christmas tree decorating activity and FINALLY took some pics.

Brig loves the bumbo.  Haha.  We don't use it much now that he is crawling.  He just tries to get out which poses too much risk for me.  Now he sits on the counter, which is way safer ;)

I had the awesome opportunity to go to a Girls Night White Elephant Gift Exchange.  It was really fun to get to meet some of the sisters from our ward.  I hardly ever get a chance to talk to anyone at church.  Between others callings and being in nursery, I never see anyone.  It was tons of fun and Jon was a trooper taking the kids.  When I got home, this is what I found.

I went to move Benson so his little arms wouldn't be achey when I kneeled on this:

Haha!
Next up, Christmas Eve.  Here are the kids in their Christmas jammies sent from Grandma and Grandpa Brady!

For Christmas Eve, we went to Old McDonalds.  Lame, I know.  Jon got off at 2 and it was early enough for a late lunch.  But by the time we got there and ate it was much later so it became our dinner.  We just had a nice big dessert later that evening.  We opened a few gifts with the kids, the things their Grandma and Grandpa Brady sent.  Then we talked about the birth of Jesus and watched videos on biblevideos.org.  I have never seen this site before, but they are seriously amazing!  I strongly recommend them to everyone!  Vanessa couldn't get enough.  I think we watched every one on there.  She just kept asking to watch more and more and more.  She loved watching all the stories about Jesus.  She is totally ready to start doing more FHE.  We did a scripture story last night and she wanted more and more.  I love her eagerness to learn about the gospel! 
After forever trying to get the kids to sleep, Jon and I got everything ready for Santa to come.  Here is the room ready for the kids to come discover their gifts.   Grandma and Grandpa Purdy got this darling kitchen for them.  They had it shipped to our house and it literally took four hours to set up.  I never would have guessed.  Toy assembly is intense.  The Ford F-150 was the kid's gift from Me and Jon.  We splurged on this, trying to find something that they could do together outside.  They love it.  Vanessa just drives Benson around, and he laughs the whole time.  I hope they get some good mileage out of this puppy.  We were careful in selecting this one because the doors don't open and they go up pretty high.  It will also drive on the grass.  Even with the doors and the lap belt, we still rigged up a harness for Benson, just to be sure we don't have any injuries.

We didn't take any pictures opening gifts on Christmas morning.  I know, we're slackers again.  We took lots of video though.  And we did get some pics of them trying out the truck in the freezing cold.

Don't mind my crazy expression.  But this was the cuter pic of Brig.  It had to have been like 20 degrees with an icing wind.  So cold.

Later that evening, Jon's cousin Quinn and Jamie and their 5 kids came over to our place for dinner.  It was fun to have them all over.  And that was our Christmas.  We are definitely very blessed this year, as we have been every year.  We have a job, health insurance, a house, clinicals trials are starting in Jan for SMA, we were all healthy for Christmas, and we were all together.  We are so blessed by the birth of our Savior, His life, and His sacrifice for us.  What a joy and a blessing.

Merry Christmas!