One things that is great about my girls starting school so early in the summer/fall is that the breaks throughout the year are longer. Christmas break this year extended a full week past when John had to go back to work, which was so nice because we need some recuperation time after going on a big trip. I swear it takes me at least as long as the trip was to feel like we are all back in our grove. So it made it nice that we had a week or so to ease back into normal life before school hit. Their last vacation day was particularly fun because our friends asked us if we wanted to go to the zoo with them.
We love this family. I am pretty sure Holland loves Erice more than she loves me. For a while there, I was "mommy" and Erica was "mom" to her. I think it was because I referred to her as Sophie's Mom, and Holland just shortened that to Mom.
Erica and I trade watching kids a lot and serve in YW together. John and Nathan carpool to work. And our girls just love playing with their kids. So it was a dream come true for our girls to get invited to the zoo with them.
We did an "extra" and went to the dinosaur exhibit, where they have these replicas of dinosaurs that even move and make noise. The little ones were pretty nervous about it. My favorite was Holland calling it "squarey."
Erica and I kept talking about how terrifying it would be to see actual dinosaurs in the wild. Even the cute baby ones would seem humongous!
It was fun though and we still had time go see a bunch of the animals.
And even stop to play at the little playground at the farm.
One cool thing was to see the chimpanzees get fed. Our girls got a front row seat and saw how they are trained to show different parts of their bodies to be inspected and checked.
It was a long, fun day. Two of the three girls crashed on the way home. Sweethearts!
Oh Christmas, how can you be so good and so bad all wrapped up in one?! I love, delight in, and cherish the Christmas season. I really do. I love the special time of celebration. I love the significance of remembering the birth of the Savior. I love the time with family. I love the anticipation of giving and receiving gifts. I love thinking of ways to serve others. I love the traditions, songs, lights, and decorations. I love the yummy food and happy times with family and friends. I love the change of the day to day and going on vacation to see family. I love it!
I do not love so much about it too. I don't love how busy it is. I don't love feeling so excessive in spending money, eating dessert, and letting my children do whatever they want (because it becomes a battle to establish boundaries again). I don't love visiting icy, freezing Utah. (I don't know when I became such a pansy about the cold, but I am pretty sure it was in the last four years.) I don't love not being able to be in my home for Christmas for lots of reasons--mainly parenting issues, comfort, convenience, a long, long drive, etc. But I especially don't love how we get super sick every Christmas recently. :( This year we got sick the week before Christmas, so I thought we got it over with before going to Utah. Nope.
We drove up on my birthday again this year (yay for celebrating in the summer!). On Christmas Eve we went with John's parents to church and hung out with them that afternoon. That evening we had Christmas Eve program, dinner, nativity with David and Patti's family, my parents, grandma, and MaryElla/Ezra. It was really nice! Unfortunately I think Holland picked up the stomach flu that had been going around those families.
We hung out a lot with David and Patti's family this trip. Mostly because they are close, fun, and already had the stomach flu that we were worried about. It was really fun! We played a lot of cards, and our girls loved playing with each other.
Christmas morning was great! We decided to do a little devotional first to conclude our Light the World/25 Days of Christ programs. It was perfect. We shared our thoughts about the Savior, sang Christmas hymns, watched a little Christmas video, and read a couple of scriptures. It wasn't that long, but it was wonderful.
Then the girls opened presents. This was the first year we really thought that maybe we went overboard on how many presents we gave each of the girls. Since they didn't get one main big gift, they got a lot of smaller less expensive gifts. It ended up seeming a little too much...
The best reactions were from Eliza receiving her Little House boxed set, and Holland receiving her big bear. I wish I had video. It was delightful.
Bonus stockings because we are at Grandma and Grandpa's house.
Miriam's favorite presents were the mermaid tail blanket and hatchimals.
David and Patti had us this year and gave the girls a Mary Poppins dress up set. My girls seriously love Mary Poppins. It is their favorite. They also got fun shoes, and Holland got a special dress. We also received a special family photo. :)
We had their family too. We gave them mermaid tail blankets, Luke's favorite foods, and fresh oranges and grapefruit.
Next was the traditional Christmas breakfast feast. Holland's face pretty much sums this up.
Then, the Christmas snow play. It was actually pretty amazing because Utah hasn't had much snow at all this year, but we woke up to a white Christmas. It was beautiful!
Holland was so cute in the snow. We took our nice camera, and she was so fun to take pictures of. Eliza was hilarious. She squeezed into a pair of 4t snow bibs, but didn't have any snow boots. Notice her bare ankles and jeans poking out. :)
The snow was so pretty. John had fun making a four tier snow man. Miriam is a little cutie pie. No snow bibs or boots for this little one either.
This little one loved the snow, but is still small enough that walking around in our little snow boots was kinda tough.
That night we had Christmas dinner with the Armstrongs. Grandma gave all of the us socks with dollar coins in it. Kayla told everyone about Sacajawea since they were supposed to be Sacajawea dollars.
The next day we kind of had a lazy day playing and organizing Christmas gifts. We drove a bit and hit 100,000 miles on our car. :( That evening was the Pearson family dinner. It was at Millie's house and was a lot of fun. They have such fun kids, and we liked hanging out with everyone.
Unfortunately, that night we had a rough time because Holland woke up in the middle of the night with the stomach flu. It is so sad because she really didn't understand what was going on. She would try to push the bowl away and hold the vomit in with her hands. John gave her a blessing and so really it only lasted a couple of hours.
Ellie got it about 5 days later and didn't have a blessing. She was vomiting pretty continually every 5-10-30 minutes for about 9 hours. It was amazing to see the difference. Also, I felt bad that we didn't give Ellie a blessing too!
Because of a sick baby, we were really nervous when the stomach flu would hit the rest of us so we stayed pretty close to home the next few days. I did go get my first pedicure with the Armstrong girls and Grandma. I like how my toenails turned out, but I wasn't that impressed with how soft my feet were.
Like I said before we hung out a lot with David and Patti that week. Holland got to watch a lot of Sofia because she was feeling yucky. Miraculously no one else got sick for a while. We got braver and went to a party at Patti's brother's house. We also spent more time with John's parents. My favorite was going skiing with John at Powder Mountain on Saturday.
It was so cold and windy, but I loved it. We don't have proper gear anymore, but it still worked.
And look at that view!
Our favorite run of the day--Sunrise! Unfortunately because of the lack of snow, there were some areas of the resort that were closed, but it was still fun.
It had been so long since we have gone skiing--since Ellie was a baby! John was a trooper and stuck with it even though he was pretty rusty. I was surprised how not rusty I felt. I guess I went skiing a zillion times more than John did growing up. It makes a difference.
Back at the ranch there were lots of fun things for these girls to do. Chalk boards.
Light brights!
Fuzzy socks and the stomach flu!
We were planning on driving back on Sunday, but Eliza woke up in the middle of the night throwing up. Like I said she didn't stop for a long time. So we were there for an extra day. She was so sicky. It was so sad, but at least she understood what was going on, why, and what to do about it.
She played on the tablet and was pretty much quarantined in that room for the day. Really it was such a miracle that no one else got sick. John, Miriam, and I stayed healthy, which was miraculous considering we were holding a vomiting toddler and were in such close quarters in the car and places.
We decided to drive home the following day by way of Vegas. That we we could split up the drive into two days, making it seem much more reasonable. We stayed in a cheap casino hotel room in Mesquite. The girls loved watching a show on the tablet and were darling falling asleep next to each other.
The next morning we got a massive breakfast at the casino restaurant. The kids loved it. We really didn't need to have another meal until we got home that early evening.
We stopped at the Hoover Dam overlook and took a little walking break. It was fun! Eliza's outfit was pretty special, but at least she is feeling healthier again! :)
Overcast but still bright!
It was actually our 11 year anniversary that day. I'll do another post about that, but in sum, I love him more than ever.
I love doing things just our little family.
People who construct things are mind blowing to me. How do people figure out how to do stuff like this?
In another state for a day!
This is a day or two after we got home. The girls all got new dresses for Christmas. They loved the pretty dresses, and I love that they love them. :)
