Merry Christmas!

We have had quite the eventful week! Every year at Christmas time, Justin's family does a Christmas Dinner that occurs sometime in the week before Christmas when everyone can be there. This year, it was on Monday night. So we were planning on driving down Monday after work and then staying the rest of the week. Well, on Sunday afternoon we decided to check the weather and saw the huge storm (8-16" of snow projected) and decided that it would be safer to drive down on Sunday afternoon and beat the storm. That worked out all well and good, except that I was planning to spend Monday doing laundry and packing for the week. So I had about 1 hour to pack and we had to take all of our dirty laundry down with us. Man, it was pretty crazy trying to cram Christmas presents, clothes for a week, dirty laundry, etc. etc. into the bug. But, we made it! We had a great week and a fun Christmas. The only bad thing is that a nasty stomach flu struck on Christmas Eve. Justin spent the day in bed, his brother Lance got sick that afternoon, Mom got it at dinner time, and it hit me around 10pm. Most of us were feeling better by the end of Christmas day, but then Dad got sick that night and Lucas, our nephew got sick early the next morning. Poor guy! Luckily, it was a fast-acting flu and was gone quickly.

Most exciting of all this week, Josie got her first tooth! It showed up on Saturday afternoon, and I can see the one next to it trying to come in as well. What a big girl!! I haven't taken a picture of her tooth because you can't see it too well yet, but you sure can feel it when she chomps down on your finger!

Here are the pictures from the week. I'm expecting Josie to wake up any minute, so I'm not going to worry about the order of the pictures. If you start at the bottom and work your way up, you'll get the chronological order. Sorry! :)

Lunch time!

New clothes from Aunt Andrea and Uncle Sam. She looks adorable in them!

Riding the elephant.

All the kids wanted a turn on the elephant. Here's Lucas trying it out.

The best present of all! :)

Josie had to taste each present to make sure it was good. :)

Josie checking out her presents.

The Christmas tree.

Santa came! Here is what he left for our little family. (The elephant was for Josie. Shucks!)

We get new Jamies every Christmas Eve. This is the boys in their jamies. L-R: Mike, Brian, Zack, Dad, Tim, and Justin.

Here's the girls in their Jamies. L-R: Me, Kim, Tassia, Melinda, and Faith.

Josie in her new jamies.

On Monday after dinner, we did the family gift exchange. (We draw names between siblings and cousins.) Josie got this awesome scooter that converts to a walker from her cousin Tucker. She loves it!

Mom and Dad's snowy backyard. There was a break in the storm and it was gorgeous!

I think this was on Sunday morning. Josie has this new thing she does where she sticks something in her mouth and then just leaves it there while playing with another toy. It cracks us up!

I didn't get a picture of Josie in her Christmas dress because she spit up on it as soon as I got it on, and about 10 times at church. So she'll just have to wear it again for New Year's or something so I can get a picture. :) I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and enjoy the New Year!

Twilight

So my cousin posted this on her blog and I was cracking up when I watched it, so I just had to share.

Pictures Again

I just had a few more pictures that I've taken in the last few weeks and haven't gotten around to posting. Playing with the spoon after lunch time.

Trying to be a big girl.

Family Picture for Christmas cards.

Mmm.. rice cereal AND fingers!

Eh?

Cute little bum!

I don't have a good caption for this one but its cute!

Sitting up like a big girl.

New chair for the baby.

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Christmas time is my favorite time of the year! The last 2 years, we had a trip to Hawaii to look forward to, but even though we aren't escaping the snow this year, I'm still excited for Christmas! I think that's because my mom always made Christmas such a fun and exciting time. Even when we were older, Christmas was always magical. This year, it just wasn't feeling like it was Christmas time yet. There wasn't any snow, so it hardly even felt like winter! But I realized what it was that was missing--the candy and treats!! My mom is a wonderful cook/baker, and at Christmas, she goes nuts! We're talking cookies, fudge, almond joy, etc. etc... I think I gained 10 lbs every Christmas. But she always made 5 times more than our family needed and on Christmas Eve the family piles into a van, or the back of someone's truck and we go around the neighborhood to friends and sing carols and deliver about 20 plates of treats. This has always been one of my favorite family traditions for 2 reasons: 1. My family is a ton of fun. When we all pile in the back of a truck together, it's a hoot! 2. We get to share the treats! Several people tell us that they look forward to our family coming every year. I'm sure some of the families in California still miss it! :)

So, to really get my house feeling like Christmas time, I spent the last few days digging up my mom's recipes and making some of the treats that she makes every year. I found myself wishing I had helped more through the years so that it wasn't so much guess-work. But everything turned out great! We will be sharing the treats with the neighbors, since the recipes I have made WAY more than any 2 people should eat in a year... But we'll be skipping the carolling until we have a bigger family to sing with :)

Josie dressed up warm to go visit some neighbors.

Getting the plates ready. This is what you end up looking like when you spend all day in the house baking. :)

Mmmm.. Sugar cookies.

Treats galore! I finally started feeling like it was Christmas when my kitchen started to look a little like my mom's does at Christmas.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Bow Website

Since bragging about my craftiness, I've had a few people ask me about the website I found. Here are the links to a couple. The bows are actually REALLY easy to make. So check it out, share it, whatever.

http://www.theribbonretreat.com/custom/free_projects.aspx

http://bowdesigns.50webs.com/index.html

Thanksgiving Trip Pictures

The Bumbo Chair. Josie loved it. It has a high back/sides so it helps her to sit up without someone holding her.

Playing with Uncle Greg in the bumbo chair.

Playing with the red ball.

Tackled by cousin Noah.

Holding hands with Noah. They did that all on their own! It was sooo cute. I'm sure they were really just trying to eat each other.

Josie, Greg (my brother) and Justin

Kimberly (my sister) and Josie

Rice Cereal Face! She had her first cereal as her Thanksgiving feast. She loves it!

Eating rice cereal for the first time. Here's a video of how much she loved it. You can hear me cracking up.

Noah (6 mo) and Josie (4 mo)

I really tried to make a conscious effort to take pictures of everything that was going and not just pictures of Joslyn, but I realized that the camera only came out when the babies were doing something cute. As a result, I only have 2 pictures without a baby in it...

Crazy Greg (playing with baby toys...)

And someone bowling. I think it's Nate, Kelley's boyfriend.

P.S. Just a quick brag, so everyone can be proud of me, I made all of the bows that Josie is wearing in these pictures. I found a website with instructions and decided to be crafty. :)

Home again, home again..

We had quite the eventful week this past week. On Tuesday night, we met up with my sister and her boyfriend and drove to California to spend the rest of the week with my siblings there. It was great fun to see them and spend time with them. I was excited for them all to see Josie for the first time and we got to see baby Noah for the first time. The drive down was great. We only had to stop twice for Josie, and she slept the rest of the time. While there, we did a lot of eating and card-playing. (Rook is a family fave). Also, my sister has a Wii, so we had some serious Mario Kart challenges going on. :) I haven't unburied my camera yet, so I will post pictures in a day or 2 when I get around to it. We were there until Sunday morning, and unfortunately, that drive wasn't as nice. We had to stop 4 times to feed the bebe, and there was lots of crying in between. I think if I was in her position, I would have cried too. She got so happy every time we took her out of the carseat, and would start bawling whenever we put her back in. Poor thing! She's back to her happy self now that carseat time is limited. The big reason (aside from seeing family, of course) that we went to Cali, was the great car exchange. My sister bought a new car, so we did a little car shuffling, and now I'm driving around a sweet little VW. We had bought the car together years ago, before I moved to Utah. When I came out here, she took over payments. So really, its like a reunion. I love this little car!!