Merry Christmas!

We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas. We woke up very early on Christmas morning to no power. The wind had been blowing all night long with a lot of snow falling. We watched the kids come down to view their treasures from Santa. We opened presents and ate cold cereal instead of warm ooey gooey cinnamon rolls. Jeff brought in his backpacking stove to boil some hot water for hot chocolate and by 10 am the power was back on, and thank goodness it came back on, because our house got down to 60 degrees. We spent the rest of the morning baking the cinnamon rolls, making a dessert for dinner, getting dressed, shoveling A LOT of snow and getting ready to go see my brother-in-law and his family along with Jeff's parents. The drive down to their was was fairly uneventful, but the drive back that night was in another storm with icy snowy roads, our car barely made it up our little hill to our house and into the driveway, I thought for sure we'd get stuck. I'm always so sad to see the Christmas season go so fast, I just want it to last a little longer, but in a few days I'll take the ornaments off the tree, package up my beautiful willow tree nativity, pull my stockings down and box everything else up and I look forward to doing it all over again next year.

Morgan loved the pretty lights on the Christmas tree

In their new jammies on Christmas eve

coming down the stairs to see what Santa brought on Christmas morning

fun presents

Ian got a very much wanted nintendo DS, we haven't been able to pry him away from it since

Cute Bedheads!

This was earlier in December before our ward Christmas party

"Nini gone gone"

After months and months of trying to find a "good time" to take Morgan's "nini" (binky) away. I finally bit the bullet and just did it on Monday night. She's been sick off and on all fall and I didn't want to take it away when she already felt crummy. I was prepared to be up and down the stairs all night calming her, telling her it was o.k., and that she was a "big girl" now and didn't need her "nini". After our normal bedtime routine of stories and songs, I layed her down in her crib and that's when she usually starts asking for her "nini". I ignored her and tucked her in and tried to give her her bunny and baby doll that she sleeps with but since she didn't have her "nini", she threw them at me. So, I quickly left the room and that's when the real crying began. She cried and cried, so about 15 minutes later I went into her room to reassure her that I was still there, I talked to her, put her blankets back on and then left again. After another 15 minutes of hysterical wailing I went in to reassure again, at this point I wasn't sure it was ever going to stop. At one point she was standing up frantically searching for it all through her covers and saying "wherego?" (where did it go?) So, after an hour of long hard crying she finally quieted down for a good 10 minutes but started up again with a little whimpering and then off to her deep slumber. She woke up in the middle of the night crying and I went in to put her blankets on her and she went right back to sleep. The next morning she woke up happy but didn't remember that she didn't go to bed with her "nini" and one of the first things she said was "wherego" with her palms facing up. Nap time yesterday was a little whimpering, and bed time was more wailing for only 3o minutes. So I really think that it went better than expected. With her strong personality I thought for sure it was going to be a lot worse. I think we still have a few more nights of "crying it out". In the long run I'll be so happy not to have to take it with us everywhere, making sure it's always with us, and even more happier to no longer getting up in the middle of the night looking through blankets and crawling under the crib searching high and low. BYE BYE "NINI"!

Giving Thanks

We had a wonderful quiet Thanksgiving. We usually don't ever go anywhere and this year it was no different. I always used to be so sad that we couldn't be together with my family or Jeff's family for a huge get together, but over the years I've grown accustomed to it just being our little family and a simple, but hearty Thanksgiving dinner. With whatever job Jeff has had over the years has required him to work the day after Thanksgiving or on Thanksgiving day.

Our Thanksgiving morning was relaxed with a simple breakfast of gingerbread muffins, thanks to Wasatch woman magazine, and lounging in front of the T.V. watching the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade. Morgan and Ian played so well together and I was able to make my apple pie, sausage stuffing and get the Turkey in the oven without interruption. We watched movies and ate pie after dinner and were so grateful to all be together in the comfort of our nice warm home.

For Family Home Evening last week Jeff printed out a paper with blank spaces that we were to fill in over the week of things that we were to be grateful for, we had a follow-up this week and it was amazing to see SO MANY things, that we have in our lives to help make us more comfortable. I am truly grateful for so many things in my life that I can't even begin to name them all. I love this time of year, and even though the Christmas season can get a little hectic it's so nice to be able to reflect upon the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and the ultimate gift that he gave us all.