Christmas 2016

What a wonderful weekend we had!

We made sure to do Christmas-y things all week to gear up for the holiday. Friday Justin took the day off and we watched the old Star Wars movies all day while preparing food for the next few days.

Watching A Christmas Story with chicken teriyaki - two Christmas gifts came early - new rugs for our two big areas which you'll see in future pictures.

Saturday morning we hosted all the Roses for breakfast. We had eggnog pancakes and breakfast casserole. I do not like eggnog, but these pancakes were amazing! Especially with my vanilla buttermilk syrup topped with whipped cream! Yum. Justin kicked me out of the house due to a Christmas trick he had up his sleeve. Laura was generous enough to be with me so we had ourselves a pedicure. I came home to my big Christmas gift - a new bed frame! I've been saying over and over how much I want one, and Justin paid attention. We dropped Emmett off at my bishop's house and we went to see Rogue One. Oh my gosh - it was SO good. And I am so impressed by my social media friends - not one spoiler! We all loved it. Go see it, stat!

hot chocolate bar

Jackson got a new bandana in his stocking ;)

We ventured over to Jon's house to for our traditional finger foods and games. There was no piano so we didn't do the Christmas program, but Justin got us some bells and we played several Christmas songs with them. I thought for sure we got a video, but no! Major fail! Jon, Papa Jon, and myself shared a spiritual thought and we played game the rest of the night.

My game was Christmas movie trivia...if you couldn't come up with an answer, you had to click until someone got whipped cream in the face. The last man standing got the prize.

Christmas Eve Emmett had a rough night! Poor Joe stayed the night with us and got a taste of what it is to be new parents. He was up multiple times in the night, but Christmas morning came and I loved watching Justin open all his gifts. I was most excited about the drone I got him and his beard pampering kit. He was most excited about me seeing the new bed and opening my tickets to my first concert ever - Coldplay is coming to Seattle in September next year and we are going! They are my all-time favorite.

Jackson's Christmas gift

our cute boy in his Sunday best

Christmas on Sunday as a kid is the worst thing ever - but Christmas on Sunday as an adult is the best thing ever. We had the most amazing Christmas sacrament service ever! I sang in one of the choirs - we sang "O Holy Night" and it was sooo good! So many other musical numbers that brought so much joy! I wish Christmas could be on Sunday every year. One hour of church singing testimonies of Christ's birth - it doesn't get better than that.

Justin's parents joined us for lunch afterward - I made ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and a spinach salad and Judy brought strawberry pretzel dessert. It was all so good! We were all pretty exhausted afterward, so they went back to Silverdale and I took a nap! It was a very Merry Christmas.

This Christmas season I have thought a lot about Mary. Having my first baby boy this year - and being the new hippie mom that I am - I thought about what Christ's birth must have been like. How scared Mary must have been when she learned there was no room in the inn. How disappointed she must have felt when she would have to give birth to her son in a manger with a bunch of animals around. We know so little about Christ's birth - did she have any additional support, or was it just her and Joseph trying to figure everything out? Either way, I'm confident there were angels there helping her. We always talk about how Heavenly Father gave his son for us - but we forget that Mary gave her son, too.

Monday Justin had the day off from work. We decided to do a trip to Seattle. We went to the Sheraton to look at the gingerbread houses. Every year they have a theme - this was our first time and the theme was Harry Potter. The gingerbread houses were out of control amazing. Everything you see in the pictures is made of candy. It was incredible! We went to the market of course, and sampled dungenous crab, had fresh doughnuts, and bought fresh oranges and a holiday flower arrangement. We hit BBQ Pete's on the way home. We put Emmett down for a nap and the Scrooge in me was over the clutter of Christmas decorations - we put everything away, got rid of a few other things in the house, and I feel like I can BREATHE again. I love the Christmas decorations, and I also love a clutter-free home.

There was a ginger bread house for every book - this was our favorite - book two complete with a chamber of secrets down below!

My friend from our old ward saw us at the market - she was going through her phone and accidentally caught us on her camera at the Sheraton! She was taking a picture of the gingerbread house and we just happened to be in the background! So funny and so great - I love it!

I'm grateful for a thoughtful husband who goes above and beyond to make Christmas special for me. The poor gentleman has the MOST picky wife around. I am hard to please, and he goes above and beyond to surprise me. I am grateful for baby Emmett who has enriched our lives. We've already worked through hard things these past five months with many more ahead, I'm sure. But every time he smiles or giggles when he sees my face or Justin's...there's just nothing else better in the whole world. I love my forever family, and my Savior who makes it all possible for me.

Voodoo Doctor and Christmas Parties

So...much has happened in the Emmett realm. I haven't been ready to document about it until I saw how things turned out...and now that things have settled I'm ready to share what we've done to treat Emmett since Thanksgiving.

I'll start by saying that Justin and I came [                   ] close to to giving Jackson away. We decided we would see the allergist before making any drastic choices. The Tuesday after we got home from Idaho I met a new friend who told me she used to be allergic to strawberries - she would eat them and her tongue and throat would swell up - and now she can have strawberries again. Whaaaat? At this point I was willing to try anything to help his skin, so I had her tell me more. She said she was treated by a chiropractor who treats allergies. I wondered how that worked, since you don't think of allergies when you think of a chiropractor, but I was ready to give it a shot and made an appointment right away. This kind of thing wasn't far off my radar to begin with. Let's recap

-I did an unmedicated home birth with a midwife
-I had my placenta encapsulated and had that for 2 1/2 months postpardum
-I eat clay and use it in the bath
-I mostly co-sleep with my baby and have been since birth
-My baby drinks from a glass bottle to avoid plastic filled with phthalates and other gunk
-I use essential oils in various ways in our home and on/in our bodies
-etc, etc,

I was able to get in right away - it's a family practice and I know the son who used to be in our ward (he actually was the first to learn we were pregnant when he extended a girls camp calling to me last year and I had to say no due to giving birth at that time - ha!). His dad saw us and he muscle tested me first - wait a minute - we were there to help Emmett, not me. But he found some issues just by muscle testing - including a yeast overgrowth! I had only associated yeast with morbidly obese people who have fungi growing in their fat rolls. I said to him, "Where is it? Is it on me?" He says, "I don't know! Is it on you?" Ha! He told me no sugar - not even fruit - for two weeks straight, to take the highest-powered probiotic I could find, and to take oregano essential oil to kill the yeast in my gut. Looking back, it totally makes sense that this developed. When you can't have milk, soy, or eggs, you CAN have the sugar-iest candies you can imagine which I was eating to cope with my previous food restrictions. He tested Emmett after me and found that he had an issue with my breast milk. I am not going to get into what it all entails to be treated - if you want to know, you can call me and we can chat - but he treated Emmett for the milk, found a bunch of other sensitivities and cleared them, and most recently cleared his reaction to dog dander, hair, and skin. Two weeks later we went back and my yeast condition was cleared - and just like that, I am back to eating like a normal person - milk, yes. Soy and eggs, yes. Sugar, yes.

So, roll your eyes all you want. Make fun as you please. All I know is, two weeks ago I was restricted to meat and vegetables and now I can have sugar cookies and hot chocolate again and Emmett's skin is clear. He's my voodoo doctor chiropractor and for $13.50 per visit, it has been well worth it!

In other news, we did see the allergist. It turned into a $100 second opinion with no solution but to come back 6 months from then to see if I could MAYBE start eating eggs in baked foods again.... meanwhile, I've been enjoying eggs for breakfast and in baked goods with no issues with myself or baby. You tell me which treatment sounds more crazy.

In the meantime, we put on our ward Christmas party. My assistant Tilly and Justin and I have been working on the prep for this for quite a while, and really sprinted at the end to make it all happen. We didn't have any help, so the three of us put it all together, ran the show, and thankfully did have some help to clean up. Here is what it looked like:

-we had Santa's workshop - kids could make a Rudolph and snowman ornament, write letters to Santa, and decorate a bulb ornament.
-we had a hot chocolate bar complete with marshmallows, whipped cream, and flavor shots such as salted caramel, raspberry, mint, and vanilla
-we had a couple musical numbers - I ended up attempting Jon Schmidt's "I saw three ships" on the piano
-we cooked 100 lbs of chuck roast and served it with mashed potatoes. The ward was asked to bring a side or dessert - don't worry - we had plenty of dessert to go around...not so much in the "side" department...
-we had a "Merry and Bright" photobooth station

It was a party set for success, but then we had about 1/2 the numbers show that normally do, and we didn't have as many bring food to share as we thought. It felt like a LOT of effort and a lot of money for not a great turnout, but what can you do? At least we thought we did a great job ;)

we cooked five of these monsters...

lots of meat in the fridge....

Emmett helping me prep the ornaments - I pre-glued the ribbon for the ornament to attach to. I also spray painted hundreds of clothes pins for the snowman ornament and hundreds of popsicle sticks for the Rudolph ornament

Now we're just getting ready for a wonderful holiday. We've had some chilly days this past week. Nothing near the -18 Arco weather, but cold for Seattle! We've even had some snow!

I love a sleeping baby

this is what happens when you forget to pack an extra onsie in the diaper bag....

Justin's Christmas cookie decorating skills

I looooove this poofy suit!

'My First Christmas' outfit

Christmas party with my MK girlfriends