The Most Wonderful Day of the Year!!

Christmas Morning came bright and early.  There was pitter-pattering of little feet in the living room that woke me up :).  I could hear the kids talking a little, and then Bradley came down to wake us up.  I LOVE Christmas morning.  It is my most favorite day of all.  Just the cheerful, loving atmosphere even though we're all so tired.  You don't get that just any day.  Especially ones where you wake everyone up at 6:00 in the morning.

So while the kids go check out their stockings as they wake up, Nate starts on the Creamed Eggs on Toast.  I usually just sit there and watch everyone :).  It's so fun!!  This year I got pictures:

One of the cute things this year, was the notes and treats that the kids put in each other's stockings.  I loved watching them all read their letters from Charity and enjoy the candy from Bradley.  I got several letters in mine.  Really sweet, thoughtful kids.  Glad they're mine.

Santa even had mercy on Kelly's "no candy" thing and got her Muddy buddy's :)

So once everyone looked through their stockings, we ate our yummy breakfast, the kids and Nate spoiled me with a new Kindle Fire for my Birthday, and then we headed on in to the Living room to open presents!!  

We let Jack sleep in.  I felt so weird about it, but I think it was the best thing :).  Funny to remember that when Kelly was a baby, we woke her up to come open presents with us!  Funny us.  Anyway-

We always open Santa's gift first, and we go youngest to oldest:

Erika got her pillow!  She loved it :)

it passed the swinging it around herself test.

Noah's turn...

he got his Captain America shield and mask.  He was thrilled!  Wish he would have looked at me with the same smile he gave Charity's camera :)

This kid can make about a million faces a minute!  This was my favorite of this moment.

He's thinking, "Well... it's not a scooter...???"  

"the Marble Thingy!!"  He was happy :)

So exciting!

Seems happy enough :)

Kelly seems to know that she's going to love hers :)

yep, loves it!

Charity's looking at the Intel box....

No way!!!  A LAPTOP!

Nate gave me a beautiful snowflake necklace

What's in here??

YAY!!  I got Nate the Note phone he's been wanting.  I think he likes it :)

After Santa's gift, we open the ones we got each other with our name drawing:

Luke had Erika, he gave her a bouncy ball that lights up.  Bought it with his own money and he's not big on spending his own money, he's a saver... so this was big :)

Watching the ball bounce down the hallway.

Nate had Noah.  He got him a Spider-man Web shooter.  Looks relieved :)

Charity got Luke a bow and arrow.  I love watching my kids love each other.

This pictures melts my heart... Erika helping Bradley open the gift she picked out for him.  The nerf gun.  He is so sweet about it and she's so happy to give it to him!  I love it!

Bradley had Kelly.  He likes to wrap things in many layers of box and wrapping paper :).  Very entertaining to open.  You can see how proud he is of it all :).

He got her some furniture to go with her Calico Critters

I had Charity.  I got her a cute sweater dress and leggings.  Unfortunately buddy made a hole in the sweater before too long.  So frustrating.

Jack had me.  So I picked out  he got me a fun game, Quelf.  I wrapped it for him though :)

Kelly got Nate a cool little airplane making kit.  Nate loves it :)

This was about the time that Jack decided to grace us with his presence.  He's so cute!

He opened his present from Santa, a cute little ball popper.

He's like, "How about I just watch you open it for me?"

Thanks Santa!

Not a lot of control with holding things still :)

I love watching the kids open their presents.  Everyone is so happy, so excited, and has so many thank yous and they're all so sweet to each other and excited to see what each other is getting.  I just love it!  Have I mentioned that?

Kelly loved her Calico Critters!  I was so happy because I knew she was going to love the gift that Nate and I had made the girls.

Charity made these cute little symbols drawings.  All the things that the Christmas stuff represents :).  I loved it!  I'm hoping to laminate it to keep for future years.

The moment Nate and I had been waiting for!  The unveiling of the dollhouse!  They were pretty happy I think :)  Didn't even notice that it was their old bookcase til later :).  Nate and I had worked our little patooties off to finish this in just the week before Christmas.  Nate did it really.  I provided some of the vision, and the carpet and wallpaper :) but Nate did the rest.  He's so cool.  Turned me on just watching him work on it :).  I've always wanted one of these.

Time for the boys' gift from Mom and Dad....

Their Motor Scooter!!!  Couldn't be happier with that :)

We opened presents for a couple hours, then played with them for the rest of the day :).  I had fun putting together Bradley's roller coaster with him.  And playing all of our new card games from Mark and Nancy.  It was a lot of fun.  We're always so exhausted though.  You really get almost delirious.  

Grandma and Simon stopped by, got to see all the gifts, and gave me a birthday present... new scriptures!  

My Aunt Nancy called soon after we finished opening presents, asked if she could come over and brought me a beautiful scarf for my birthday.  So thoughtful!  She's always so sweet about my birthday.  I don't know how she remembers it.

Then my Dad came down, played with all the new toys for a while.

Heidi and John showed up around Lunch time and played a little.  Heidi gave everyone a gift, gave me a nice birthday present. Then everyone went downstairs for some Runaway Bride.  Not sure why they chose that... but whatever :).  

Steve and Jauslin and the Hatches joined us around 6:00.  It was a full house!  We had a lot of fun I think :)  It was all so blurry :).  Jauslin was so thoughtful to give me a new basket for my sewing stuff, and Sarah and Brent gave me a Cafe Rio gift card!!  Makes my mouth water just thinking about it!

We got started on dinner a little late, and didn't finish it til almost 7:30... oops.  And it was yummy, but we were all SO TIRED!!  

Nate surprised me with a yummy ice cream cake!  Dairy Queen, my favorite!  He's always so thoughtful!  Everyone is for that matter!  I can't believe everyone remembers my birthday on a day like that.

It was a great day!   I LOVED it!!  It's always hard for it to be over.  I am always wishing we could do it again, sooner.  

Christmas Eve

We had such a nice Christmas Eve Day.  Nate had worked the mid, so he slept a lot of the day, but the kids and I spent a good portion of the morning cleaning up the house "for Santa".  I think the kids are on to me.  They know it's mostly for me and that Santa only cares about our bedrooms being clean, but hey, whatever it takes to get a clean house to spend Christmas in :).  We were really excited for the prize that resided in "The Bag".  I told the kids it was a fun surprise that we needed to get dressed nice for and that was all they needed to know!  They were SO excited!  And they didn't even know what for :).  

Once Dad was awake and things were all taken care of, everyone was dressed and looking clean and nice, we opened the bag and found out that we were going to go to Nate's work.....

and

talk

to 

SANTA!!!!!

afterall!!

This was a cool surprise!

WE met up with Nate's parents and Aunt Jen at his work.  Nate had wanted to take them to show them around his work, so they all went in first, then we were able to sneak through security (jk) and get in without Nate and meet them in the lobby.  

It's always fun to go to Nate's work.  To see where he spends his days.  The kids love his break room the most :).  

ANYWAY-

We went up for our turn to talk to Santa without too much of a wait, it was awesome.

Since it's been well over a week since it happened, I don't have ALL the details that I would like to remember, but here's what I remember:

(the order I don't remember)

Santa congratulated Erika for dressing herself so well, and learning to sleep in her own bed.  He thanked her for being so nice to her baby brother, Jack.  He asked her what she wanted and she said, "A Blankie".  Santa told her she would be happy with what he was bringing her.

Santa congratulated Noah for not sucking his fingers anymore and for going to his Primary class by himself so well the last few weeks.  Asked him what he wanted and Noah rattled off a bunch of things (including Buzz Lightyear- a new obsession that began THAT MORNING!), and Santa laughed :).

Santa told Luke to make sure he used his amazing talents to help him at school and to keep doing his homework and going to school.  He asked him what he wanted and Luke said he didn't know.  He told Luke to keep playing with Buddy.

When Bradley talked to him, he told Bradley how he used to play Basketball too, before he hit the cookies, just like Brad.  I don't think he asked Bradley what he wanted for Christmas.

Kelly found out that Mrs. Claus had been in the Sound of Music Play that her school did too!  She had played the part of Leisl.  How cool is that!  I don't think he asked Kelly what she wanted either.

Santa congratulated Charity for winning her spelling bee.  Asked her about Buddy, then asked her what she wanted.  She wasn't sure either.  Then he told her to keep up the good typing.

I LOVE that our kids have had the chance to do this over the years!  It's SO much fun for them.  And me.  I love cool stuff that only applies to kids of Air Traffic Controllers :).

So once we were done talking to Santa, and finished our tour of Nate's work, said goodbye to Grandma Ruthie and Grandpa Russ, it was time to go home.

We still had about an hour to kill before Grandpa's party.  

SO

I just texted him and asked if we could come early :).  

And we did.  

This is a memorable tradition for our kids.  Back when Nana was here, it was one of the only traditions my family had.  Going to Nana's house for goodies, Christmas Story, and of course, the grand opening of your present from Nana :).  She always got you exactly what you wanted, and you knew what it was going to be and it was one of the most exciting things about Christmas (for me anyway).  We always sat around for hours waiting for the Tuellers, that was always hard.... but it was fun!

Now that Nana is gone, we go to Grandpa Hatch's house to carry out this tradition. This year, Grandpa took everyone shopping during the week before Christmas to pick out their gifts.  This was pretty exciting for everyone.  To have one on one time with Grandpa, and then ice cream for most of them, or dinner or lunch, and then getting the exact thing they wanted, no matter how hard it was to find or how long it took to decide.  Which apparently is a long time for some of my kids.  Figures.

Grandpa had a lot of food, lots of presents, and we all had a lot of fun visiting.  Brent, Sarah, Charlie, Alvin, Steve, and Jauslin were all there.  We always go youngest to oldest opening presents.  Everyone seemed more than happy with their gifts this year.  Me especially :).  I got a new sewing machine!!  Wahoo!!  Nate got his beloved Jazz tickets (when my Dad finds a winning gift, he sticks with it :) ).  Charity picked Heelies

Kelly got her Calico Critters

Bradley- Heelies

Luke actually didn't get to pick out his own gift because Grandpa had bought his earlier in the year.  A Remote Control Mario Cart and an Angry Birds blanket (with hoodie)- surprisingly, I think he liked the blanket the most.  That's probably partly because the Remote Control car only worked for a few minutes before they had to charge it and then when he tried it the next day, it didn't ever work.  That was a bummer.  But Luke is totally cool about it.  I love that about Lukey.  Grandpa is trying to get him another one.

Noah picked out a talking telescope.  Not sure what he was thinking there.  Passed up all of the millions of other things he had been wanting all month... but whatever.  He was happy.

Erika picked out a doll that walks, silly string (her favorite) and a tooth brush holder- with Dora on it... Grandpa obviously doesn't know I've put a ban on all Dora anything. Just kidding.

And Jack.... well.... he didn't get anything :) HA!  My Dad's funny.  He forgets about some of his littler grand kids :).  Makes me laugh.  

Once we'd eaten all we could eat, and made a big enough mess of Grandpa's house, we all packed up the car and came home.  

It was then time for the traditional JAMMIES!!  Somehow I convinced my kids that I wasn't doing the pajamas this year, so it was a surprise :).

I did pretty good on the sizes this year, except on Luke's, his MIGHT fit him before he goes on his mission... just kidding.  They're a couple sizes too big.  We'll see if we can adjust them, but Luke seems to love them still.  And they matched the blanket Grandpa gave him :).

Had to post enough pictures to capture everyone's best :)

After Jammies, we hurriedly laid out some of the chocolate covered pretzels for Santa that we'd made earlier for neighbors, then carrots for the reindeers, then....

OFF TO BED!!  

There was excitement in the air!

He's 4 months old!

My cute little man is still growing!  Don't let the "little" on his shirt fool you.  He was in the 80th-ish-percentile for his weight, height, and head circ. :)  He's a big boy!  And the more of him for us to love!  We all can't get enough of him.  Especially me.  I love his sweet, low voice, his little giggles, his smile that takes his whole body to make :).  His kicks and sit-ups.  He is just a fun little guy.  I love it when he looks up at me and then smiles, gets bashful, and hides his face :)  It's so adorable!  He makes the sweetest little "gooo" sounds.  When he does, he looks like he's practicing something and trying to perfect it.  I love to snuggle with him.  He loves to be wiggling and moving almost non-stop, but he always takes time to snuggle and cuddle with his mommy.  And we do.  A lot. :).  Probably the main reason my house is such a wreck these days.  He's worth it :).

Erika can't get enough of him either.  She is so loving and gentle with him.  And he loves her so much.  They are buds.

I love his cowardly lion cheeks.

Buddy is surprisingly gentle with him, and Jack is surprisingly not afraid of Buddy.  It's a good thing.

Melts my heart!

eh, Mom, not in front of the guys!

She's always got her hands on him.  Doing something.

Christmas Sing-a-long

This is a tradition at our school, the whole school gathers in the activity room and each grade level performs a different Christmas song.  It's a lot of fun, the music teacher picks such fun songs and such fun ways to perform them.  It's not well advertised to all the parents, in fact, I think they kind of frown on the parents going, but I don't care :).  I have been every year that I could.  The first year I think it was an accident that I found out about it and I've just remembered to ask the kids when it is since then.  It's always a lot of fun for me :).  This year, Nate got to come along.  He took video and pictures for me.  

Luke's grade sang "All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth".  Lukey loved this song and sang it lot in the weeks leading up to it.  Unfortunately, we were sitting in the wrong place to see their cute faces.  Probably on purpose so that the parents won't come :).  Just kidding.  

Bradley's grade sang "Santa is a Cool Guy".  Way cute song.  Cute dance actions to go with it.

Kelly's grade did a really pretty instrumental song on their recorders.  I don't remember which one it was.  It was really nice though, I couldn't believe how good they all sounded!  First year of recorders!

Charity's grade sang "Run Run Rudolph".  That was a fun one, with their drum sticks clicking through it all and fun dance moves.  It's just fun.

After the singing, Santa shows up for a few seconds to tell them that Hannah Holbrook is his favorite Elementary school and then runs off.  It's cute.  My kids know he's not the REAL Santa, so their slightly less impressed, but it's still fun.

Journaling

- Nate took me to his Union Christmas Party.  I will admit I was seriously dreading that party all week before, but I ended up having a pretty good time.  There was a lot of stuff I could have done without.  But it was actually kind of fun.  It was a "Gambling Night".  They had tables set up to play games.  We stayed at the 21 table all night, and learned SO much about the game 21!  We were playing with chips that we got because we turned in our raffle ticket.  For every $500 in chips that you ended up with, you would get a raffle ticket to win prizes at the end of the night!  So kinda fun right?!  It's like gambling with someone else's money.  We were pretty good at it.  Wouldn't make it in Vegas though.  We're both too stingy.  There's no way I could set down $5 and say, let's see if I can get closest to 21 with this random deal.... and keep my money!  It sure was fun though.  I can see where the thrill of gambling comes in.  I remember having fun gambling with sunflower seeds when I was a kid too.  Just harmless fun :).  Anyway.  I am grateful for a husband who loves me and treats me so sweetly when we are at those things.  I feel like he's proud of me and likes introducing me to people.  Makes me feel good :).  I did meet a few really cool people.  The Union President's wife was fun at the 21 table.  Then the Vice President's wife was from Sandy and went to Alta!  She was nice too.  I liked Rob's wife the best.  Good thing I'm so good with names, I came out with one apparently.  Just kidding.  Nate will help me remember them later.  So anyway.  It was a nice date with my honey.  12-15-12

- Saturday, we met Nate's parents out at Mimi's in Sandy and had dinner with them.  It was a lot of fun.  Some of the kids and I were sitting down at one end of the table with Grandma Ruthie and Nate and a few others were down at the other end of the table by Grandpa Russ.  There was a lot of talking going on :).  I enjoyed it so much!  I miss having the one on one time like that.  They're so busy usually.  I wonder if they were expecting a big announcement or something... that's what usually happens when we all make time to get together :).  Hope we didn't disappoint.

After dinner, we drove a little further South to catch the lights at Thanksgiving Point.  We had "won" a gift certificate to drive through the lights display at Nate's Union Party.  I can't believe they can charge $9 to do that, normally, but luckily we got in free.  It was pretty fun.  The kids seemed a little thrown off when I told them they could take off seat belts and look out the windows standing up.  I even took Jack out of his seat and fed him as we were driving through.  I'm the seatbelt nazi so you know it was okay :).  I think we were going about 4 mph and nobody around us could go any faster than that.  I guess I did imagine the possibility of some freak speeding through the whole thing, tearing down displays and launching themselves over the bushes and stuff... crashing into us and killing us all because we weren't buckled, but I guess it was unlikely, and I gave in.  Either way, the kids loved the lights :).  We all talked about them all and it was a nice pleasant time for the family.  (I'm avoiding the subject of how long it took us to wait in line to get in the lights.  But the remarkable thing was that about a half hour before we got to the gate, we decided to place bets on what time we would reach the booth to pay.  Nate guessed 9:03, then we all guessed times around then- we know what a good guesser he is- and surprise surprise, he was RIGHT ON!!  to the MINUTE!!!  I couldn't believe it.  He knows the future.  It's nuts!)

We stopped at Malisa and Joe's house to leave their gifts on the porch.  Malisa had gone to the store to get stuff for her sick family.  I wish we'd been able to see them, but it was all good.

- For New Year's Eve day I put some of the fun activities we wanted to do that day, in balloons.  I hung them from the window and then wrote an hour on each one.  We popped the balloon on the hour and did the activity inside.  Pinterest idea.  It was pretty fun.  Although, if I do it again, I will be coming up with some more exciting activities.  Some of them were slightly anti-climactic.  Kind of like the Christmas advent bag.  But it was still fun.  The one everyone was excited about was "going sledding"!!  Nate had bought some sledding disks (since Kambree popped our other two tubes) and we all suited up and went sledding at the church hill, had some friends there with us too.  I spent most of the time walking and driving people to the bathroom (the church had been open for the first few potty trips).  I did manage to squeeze in a few times down the hill on the tube.  Nate stood and talked to Don most of the time, and froze his little cheeks off.  He took a bunch of pictures on his phone and got some fun videos, but I didn't have my camera there, so we will have to get those later.  It was a lot of fun.  Then we went and got some pizza and crazy bread and headed home to get ready for our party.  I really didn't do enough preparation for that party.  I still feel weird about it.  It was almost an after thought by the end of that day.  It's always such a long day.  I need to remember to prepare for it better if we do it again.  We had the Hatches, Heidi and John, and Steve and Jauslin over.  I felt so bad for nagging Steve to come, he was suffering from some major dental problems.  It was so sad!  He ended up leaving early.  Brent had to leave early too to go to work, so that was a bummer.  We did play a few games.  Everyone humors my kids so well :).  And then rang in the New Year with a big bang!  The kids all made tons of noise and screaming... and then it was time for bed!  I was SO TIRED!!!  It's been a while since I was that tired.

I hope that night wasn't a sign of how 2013 is going to be because it was horrible!!  I don't even remember it all now, but Jack took forever to get to sleep, then Luke came down unable to sleep, and then Noah after him.  I think we ended up with a few kids in our bed that night and I woke up about 3 or 4 times with Jack in the night (which I know is normal for a normal baby, but he has not be a "normal" baby!  He's been a dream!  So that was a bummer.  But luckily it was just a bad night, not new habits forming).  It was a horrible night!  We were able to sleep in a little, so that was good.  Then dragged ourselves out of the house to go to Grandma and Simon's house for lunch.  That was a lot of fun.  We had so much fun talking with Brent and Sarah.  Good times.  We were supposed to meet up with Chris and Stephanie that evening, but we rescheduled.  Everyone was starting to seem sick... not good the day before school starts back up!!  1-1-13

- One thing I do want to record was my little bonding time with Jack.  Nate says we don't need anymore bonding :), but it was really special.  The last time he woke me up, around 8:00, I was changing him and dressing him, and afterward sat and looked at him, smiling and tickling him :).  And he was cooing... it was so cute!  I decided we wanted to lay back down and get a little more bed-time in, and so I laid him down next to me, on my pillow, facing me and we just sat there and stared at each other.  It was so awesome.  He was talking, and I was talking and he would smile and I would smile.... SO sweet!  I L O V E D it!!  It was such a special time for us.  I wish I had the time to just sit and stare at all of my kids like that.  Maybe I should make it a new thing... I don't know... but I sure enjoyed it.  Jack still just seems like he has an old spirit.  I love it.  I love getting to know him and his personality.  It was a nice little experience.  1-1-13

- Oh, wow, there's just been so much happening!  I wish I'd been journaling better! I missed half of the month.  HOpefully I can fill in the blanks when they come to me.  Until then....