Earlier this week my mom asked me what my favorite Christmas was and I think this year has been my favorite. My kids are at such a fun Christmas age and we totally nailed their gifts this year.
Emmett getting checked out at the dentist
Kayla and Easton gave Emmett and Logan coloring books for Christmas with new markers - my kids NEVER do coloring books but this one must've come with some magic because they ask to color constantly now.
Helping me make homemade pizza
The last line: "piano is toast" 😂
I've been craving a quinoa salad my friend Kari used to make for me so I made it twice this week - talk about eating the rainbow
yum!!
I've been tracking where the sun sets for the solstices and equinoxes because I'm just a nerd like that.
On Christmas Eve Eve the Roses gathered via zoom for some virtual festivities. We played some games and everyone opened gifts they got for each other. For one of the games the men had the women participate in a blind-taste test. The worst was watching poor Bonnie get spoon-fed garlic powder on the first round with the first item. Rude! Good thing they ended up winning. Justin KNOWS I have a chicken aversion right now and he had me taste it blindfolded - bleh!!! But something fun: he also had me taste test ginger which totally ruined my palette for all the following items (try identifying a canned peach after you've had a mouthful of fresh ginger LOL), BUT the taste did something to baby because he/she was jumping all over the place afterward which was my first time I could definitively say I felt him/her. I'm 15 weeks so...Yay!
One of the Rose games was to build a Christmas creation with legos - Justin did Samuel the Lamanite. Note the "arrows" coming at him and the army men shooting at him.😂
I convinced Justin that chopping up some of our PVC pipe from our nine-square game would be great fun for the kids.
May you all enjoy eating a sugar cookie as much as this boy (que closed eyes and rocking back and forth...his mama does this kind of thing too).
On Christmas Eve, Mom and Dad had us over for dinner. We made rolls while Mom made all the good stuff for dinner: turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, candied yams, stuffing, Christmas jello, and Dad made his famous strawberry ice cream for dessert. We did our Book of Mormon Christmas program and Mom had me play the piano. I've been playing on an out-of-tune, tune-up-is-impossible piano so playing in the correct key kinda threw me for a loop! Sadly our piano was deemed "ready for the dump" by the piano tuner earlier this week. But we made it through "All the Stars Shone Down" (barely) and we enjoyed doing songs with the bells. I had Emmett practice all week and he was able to play with us for most of the songs. Granny and Gramps got some new toys for playing at their house which the kids got to open. Emmett proudly described to Granny and Gramps the names of the dinosaurs as well as whether they are carnivores or herbivores. After a little charades and some homemade ice cream I was BEAT so we headed home. After getting kids in bed, Justin began assembling Logan's kitchen set gift. He was a trooper and did it all himself with no help from me - I was too exhausted to do anything more than wait for him to be done in the bedroom so I could go to bed. We put Logan's kitchen set and Emmett's "Indominus Rex" toy out for them to discover and hit the hay.
I made German pancakes and bacon Christmas Eve morning to kick off the day. These pancakes are SO fun - we dusted them with powdered sugar and served with strawberries and whipped cream. Yum.
lol...faces I get when I ask them to smile.
Doing a Christmas craft
Emmett singing along during the program
Charades
Dino-track
Watching The Grinch before bedtime - their last Christmas Eve with just the two of them!
Santa has arrived
Emmett woke in the middle of the night and came to our room - when I sent him back to his room he spotted his Indominus and took it to bed with him. 😂Thankfully it was still in its box so he couldn't try out its sound effects and wake Logan.
At an appropriate hour of 6:00, Logan got up and Justin got up with him. I laid in bed until I heard Emmett come out and we started the present opening at about 6:30. Justin got a fun surprise from his Reddit gift-giver who gifted the whole family: including baby Rose! That motivated me to go all-out for Justin's Reddit gift receiver next year. We loved watching the boys open all their gifts from us and other family who bought gifts for them, and also enjoyed getting exactly what we wanted from each other.
We made stuffed French toast and bacon to take over and share with Mom and Dad for Christmas breakfast - they shared salmon and fried eggs with us. Our kids randomly love salmon. We forced Mom and Dad to play one of Justin's "escape room" games with us which I actually think Dad kind of liked and we tried to keep Mom happy by having her read all the clues. We did it with 11 minutes to spare and only had to get internet help one time. Then we played Pictionary boys vs. girls. Mom and I were losing terribly 11-5 when we decided first to 15 wins. By some miracle we came back and won 15-14. High five Mom!
All of Justin's Reddit gifts
I've been loving my yoga set! It has made a big difference. I try to do my prenatal yoga every day. It's such good practice of controlled breathing which was key in both my previous deliveries.
Justin explaining the escape room rules...Mom and Dad's faces!😂..."You mean I have to use my brain?"
Victory!
Pictionary time
Trying out one of the Reddit gifts
Saturday morning we woke up to a little bit of snow. Justin started taking Christmas decorations down (which I normally like to do on boxing day as well), but I reminded him we didn't have good storage to put the decorations in, so I convinced him to go to Costco. On the drive there we changed course to the Pocatello location which turned out great because 1.) that location isn't making kids wear masks but the I.F. one is and 2.) I got to get some takeout sushi which I have been missing like crazy and it hit the spot! We watched "It's a Wonderful Life" in color through Amazon Prime that night which was fun. I love love love that movie.
Who needs Christmas gifts when you can have storage bins?
Today the ward showed my video primary program. Our bishop has a healthy sense of frugality so he won't spend the money to have unlimited time on our church zoom meetings. The guy conducting started the meeting really early so by the time they had an opening prayer, song, and announcements there wasn't enough time for the whole program to play, so with minutes left on the video everyone got booted off! I was disappointed for those families that had kids on the tail-end, but they later emailed the whole thing out for people to watch. It was 17 minutes and I was so proud of Emmett's part! He spoke up nice and clearly and didn't need much prompting from us. Chase and Rachel blessed their new baby Kamryn today as well and we got to listen over zoom. She was born at the end of September and wow she already looks so big! Chase did a great job on her blessing.
Emmett's part of the primary program. Logan normally does these "mantras" with Emmett but he was not cooperating, and when we took him out of the shot he would cry/scream so... the best take we got included his sad crying self. 😂🙈
Well December went by really fast for me which was great because September, October, and November were really tough and long. I'm excited to welcome in the new year where we'll be adding our 3rd baby to our family.
Unrelated: a Facebook memory popped up of my commencement speech at the College of Physical Sciences at BYU-I. Ummm...I've got to say that I'm quite proud that in a group of hundreds of science nerd graduates I was selected to give one of the two commencement speeches. So I made sure to download it and put on here for posterity. I remember writing this speech that morning in-between cleaning out our apartment: we moved to Las Vegas the very next morning. Hopefully my kids get some of those brains.
No comments:
Post a Comment