Our Christmas festivities were non-stop this year since Mike and Kim's family were in town. It rocked! Unfortunately, I sent everybody on their adventures while I sat at home and laid on a heating pad and tried not to go into labor! ha ha!
One day Sam was a good sport at attending Parker's classroom Gingerbread House making activity. I'm sooooo glad he went because it involved creativity and patience...we all know how I score in THOSE categories! ha ha! Gotta love Parker!
This same night, Sam took the boys along with Mike's family and Curtis and Dexter to a sledding hill in Park City. From the pictures I would assess they had a fabulous time! I want to go next year when I'm not prego! It even has a rope pull to pull you back up to the top of the hill! Dang, that's the worst part about sledding and it's all taken care of for you. Kids these days, they are spoiled! Back in my day we had to use a large cookie sheet as a sled! Okay, this is true, but only because we lived in Seattle and nobody had sleds because it rarely snows. We were improvising!
This picture is the BEST! Here is Parker with Dexter. Can you see all the condensation around Dexter's mouth? I keep laughing super hard every time I look at it, it's like he has a freaky goatee!
Yeah that's right Carson, just sit back and let the rope pull do all the work! Good thing we just increased your exercise regimen at home to make up for it! Now the boys do 25 sit ups, 15 push ups, and 50 jumping jacks every day. :)
They even had these miniature snow mobiles for kids up to age 12. Ah, to be young again! Actually, I'd cry a river if I had to re-live my 12 year old days. Have you seen pictures of my awkward puberty days? Well, I have and they are frightening! Puberty hit and my hair went all curly without any warning. Seriously, frightening! Don't even get me started on the acne and the pre-braces days! Wow, let's move on...
Sam was a trooper and went snow boarding one day with Mike, Kim, Courtney, Camilla, Carson, Kevin, and Curtis. Out of all those people, only Curtis and Sam had been snow boarding before. :) I was glad they were all willing to try something new! From what I understand, the first few times snow boarding are the WORST. I was proud of everybody because nobody came home pouting so that's a good sign! Mike and Kim even gave Sam an itunes gift card to thank him for his teaching skills, which was extremely thoughtful!
Christmas Eve we always make homemade pizza for dinner and have crepes with ice cream for dessert. This is a HIDEOUS picture of me, but it's a great picture of my dad! :) Ya win some, ya lose some.
Here's Mike taking a picture of Cameron, making a funny face. Oh man, those two became best buds. Cameron LOVES his Uncle Mike! This picture makes me laugh because look at that blurry kid at the bottom of the picture. That's Darren's son Jacob. He never slows down! Classic!
The master photographer, Darren, taking a photo of his carefully crafted crepe! We do love to photograph our food in this family!
Since Carson doesn't totally love ice cream (is he really my son??) he opted for Nutella on his crepe. Okay, I'll admit, that still makes for a great crepe! I think the Nutella is bringing out the pirate in Carson...
Christmas Eve means new pajamas! Unfortunately, Cameron forgot how to smile for the camera. This is seriously the 10th attempt at a good smile. Again, you win some, you lose some!
Christmas morning was wonderful! We had to wake our kids up, just like every year. I keep wondering when they will stay up all night like I used to do! We took our time opening gifts and enjoyed the Sabbath morning. I loved that Christmas was on Sunday! It was the cats meow!
Sam surprised me by making a book out of the first year of this blog, 2006. This sucker is 350 pages long! Luckily, 2006 had my most blog posts, they get smaller from here on out. I loved going back and reading this book, comments and all. So much fun! I hope to get the other 5 years done as well....hint hint!
The kids were pleased with their gifts and it was really fun this year because they also purchased gifts for each other, which I think made them so much more grateful since they spent their own money. Seriously, we are blessed with such fun boys!
After church, we went to Fern and Russ' house to hang out for a little while. Russ gave me the most hysterical gift: See that doll by my foot? Well, it's a black baby doll. In light of Cameron thinking his baby sister is going to be black (because the ultra sound showed her as black), Russ thought it appropriate to give me a black doll! I was laughing so hard, serious belly laughing! This doll is proudly displayed with the other dolls I have for baby Lillie!
Yah, don't ask. Aaron is just being Aaron! :)
Aaron and his wife, Danielle, are expecting their first baby in April. It's a boy! I love this shirt Fern gave them. I could have used this a few times!
They will be great parents! You should have seen how patiently they helped Cameron assemble a lego Mater from the movie Cars 2!
The day after Christmas we decided to exhaust everybody of all their candy-induced energy by being very physical! We first went to a bounce house. Let's just say we are very thankful to the teenage boy who was working there because he didn't care at all how crazy these kids were being!
That night we went to the Airborne Trampoline place. After one hour everybody had sweat running down their faces. It was awesome! My most favorite part of the night was watching Mike try to get out of the foam pits. It was hyserical!! Love ya Mike!
I can honestly say, I'm surprised all the Christmas activities did not send me right into labor! Last night Sam and I took down all the Christmas decorations and cleaned the house. At one point, I was standing in the family room and honestly could not walk for fear the pelvic pressure would kill me. I am COUNTING down the days to my induction! One week from Saturday!!!!!
