Twas the Week Before Christmas....Till the End of '09

This is going to be a big update... that no one will read. So just look at the pictures and captions... I know that's all you do anyway and that's okay! : ) Especially when you see how long this puppy is!

The first week Luke had off of school we anticipated spending lots of time together since he was only allowed part time hours. Well that lasted a whole of one day. Then he got bumped up to full-time.... which is good for monetary purposes... sad for all the lost family time.
But we made it through and on the 19th we had a whole day to spend with daddy.  We went to the
American West Heritage Center-- Frontier Days and Holly Fest
We enjoyed this FROSTY day as we rode a cute little train, saw Father Christmas, went into the little shops, rode a horse drawn sleigh, and went into the Live Nativity 4 times! Tianna absolutely LOVED that event!
 It was a barn that had a bunch of straw and a manger in the center.  There were goats, a friendly donkey and a cow.  They supplied costumes and the Nativity story in a binder so you and your family could act out the story to your fullest desires.  It had such a special feeling inside that quiet, warm stable.  When Tianna wanted to return for the 4th time we couldn't exactly deny her when she said "I want to see Baby Jesus again!!" 

 

 Sunday we enjoyed a beautiful musical Sacrament Meeting.  One thought that particularly stuck out to me was when one speaker said his favorite Christmas Hymn is "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and how there were HOSTS of Heavenly Angels singing.... was I there?  I like to think we all were on that precious and sacred night!


Monday we went Christmas Caroling through our neighborhood with a bunch of people. It was so neat! I hope this becomes a tradition because it was so fun.  It was cool collecting people as we went! 

Tuesday was a BIG SAD.  I got released from my favorite calling of all time.  I have been the YW Mia Maid advisor and they released me and called me as Primary Chorister.  Although I'm kind of excited/SCARED TO DEATH about my new calling I've been distraught for weeks about being out of YW.  That was my outlet as a stay-at-home mom.  It was somewhere for me to go with people that I love while we've been here in Logan away from our families.  ... but what do ya do?  The only constant in life is change, I guess. Even when it blindsides us! I just need to remind myself of the saying, "Come what may, and I love it" by Joseph B. Wirthlin.

Anyway.. back to the vacation details.  Wednesday, Luke got off work fairly early and we were able to travel down to Castle Dale where we spent Christmas with his side of the family.  Every one of us were there and even the ones who live in town slept at his parent's house.  It was so fun!

Christmas Eve
We woke up and had a wonderful, lazy morning and finally got around to sledding after lunch.  We had some good times racing down this steep hill.  Tianna was quite the trooper! She got whitewashed a number of times but never complained! Adelia really enjoyed sledding.... from her carseat, fast asleep. It was her best nap of the whole break! 
I'll get sleddibg pics from my SIL soon hopefully! 

Once we got back and thawed from our adventure we started working on Christmas dinner.  Before we ate, we had the best darn Nativity ever! Mary (Tianna) was REALLY into her role and was so frusterated at Joseph (Aden) for being more intersted in eating Skittles than performing.  The little lamb (Adelia) could care less what was going on but made a darn cute little sheep...until her major diaper blow-out!! And as for the star of the show, well, he was just a bit older than the real Baby Jesus (Raleigh) so he was in total character.  

 Since we were working with 3 and under we told the Christmas story by reading a little set of books that told the story and after each topic we sang a corresponding song.... and shoved Skittles into the kids mouths so they would act out each phase of the story.   It was short and sweet.

Then we ate a yummy dinner and got the kids in their jammies and went to see the local Christmas lights. 

 

This was my favorite part of the entire holiday.  We wanted them to fall asleep so Santa could make his debut, and since we were going like 10 miles an hour, I held Adelia in my arms and Tianna wasn't in a car seat either.  After a few minutes she came and sat in the front between Luke and I. It was just such a magical experience nestling together with Christmas songs softly playing in the background, enjoying Tianna's awe-struck expression as we passed each display, and holding my sweet, angel baby in my arms, and watching her peacefully sleep. It was the perfect ending to our Christmas Eve.  Or rather, the perfect beginning for a great Christmas day!


Christmas Morning

We actually had to wake up Tianna, but once we said, "Tianna, do you think Santa Claus came?" Her eyes popped open and she lept out of bed.  

Tianna got a light-up drawing desk and coloring stuff, a little Ariel doll, food for her play kitchen,  movies, a ukalele, and some other little things. 

Adelia got a ball popper, other toys, and a COLD!  She woke up Christmas morning with a terrible cold and her poor little nose ran and ran.  She did enjoy each of her new toys with a good TASTE TEST! No wonder we all ended up sick later in the week! :)  I think she liked her first Christmas though.  

Christmas morning was so fun!  You never fully experience Christmas after like age 10 until you experience it though your children's eyes!  It's so cool to see how excited they are about each gift, how exciting it is for them to OPEN a gift.... and the best, seeing how much they love GIVING gifts! Even if gifts weren't in the formula though, Christmas would still be the best day of the year. 

Luke and I weren't left out either.  Santa brought a picture of our new dishwasher (for some reason he decided not to drop it off in Castle Dale... go figure!)  and Utah State paraphernalia.  Luke got a Fossil watch, the movie UP and our own Adventure Book (scrapbook of our major events together)and I got a new snow coat, bead watches, and some clothese.  We also got wonderful gifts from family and friends. Thank you everyone for your generosity and LOVE! 

 After opening presents and watching UP we made our way to the Grandparent's houses. It always makes me miss my own grandparetns but I'm so grateful to have 2 other sets.  I'm so grateful that my children get to enjoy not only my parents and Luke's parents, but both of his grandparents! At one time Tianna had 4 grandparents, 5 living great grandparents and 1 great great grandma! How lucky we are for family?!

 

 Saturday was the annual Peacock Christmas Party.  Like always it was a good time!

 

 

Later that night we went to the cabin and spent Sunday there with my family.  
That night Luke had to go back to Logan so he could work until New Years Eve.  :( He was very missed.

Monday thru Thursday the girls and I stayed at the cabin and played in the snow, played a lot of card and board games and had a good time with family and ate lots of food! Yep, there went all my hard weight loss work!  

 

 

My Grandma's sister and her husband (Kathryn and Ken) recently returned home from a mission in Hong Kong and they came to spend New Years with us at the cabin.  It was crazy how much Kathryn looks like my grandma did and it almost felt like Grandma was there with us.  That was really special! 

 All of my family was together for New Years except for James and Val who were in Italy.  Uncle Ken started playing song on his guitar and before long there were lots of solos, group numbers, and duets sung or played on the piano and even dance performances by the kids.  Another person besides my Grandma who was really missed was Vittoria.  It felt somewhat hallow having all the girls up dancing and singing without her. We miss her so much and it just seems unreal that she's gone and has been for nearly 5 months now.  
After the music peetered out we played a few games and then it was midnight!  We got New Years kisses, drank some bubbly (non alchoholic of course) and went to bed.  Welcome 2010... hope you are fully of joy, health, and happiness! And hope you don't bring as much heartache and sorrow as 2009 did.  
I can't say the whole year was bad though... after all, we welcomed our sweet angel into our home and one more on each side of our families. 

Now it's back to real life. The tree and lights are down, school started today (bleh) and January is nearly half over. At this rate I'll be writing my Christmas 2010 update in no time! 

A Double Feature and A Cookie Party

Tuesday night we had a little family outing.  We went to see PRINCESS AND THE FROG!  First off-- Tianna is obsessed with princesses (as you can tell from practically every post involving her wearing her dress-ups) but to maket his movie even more relatable to her, the new princess' name is Tiana.  (In case you are unaware of her pronounciation because you've only read her name it is Tianna, with the A being like my name, Mary Anna... not with an aw sound.)  But in light of this new princess, she tells everyone her name is Ti-AW-na.  And that is okay.

 But we love LOVE LOOOOOOOVED the movie! The whole voodoo element was kind of scary because it wasn't the complete make-believe wizardry/spell stuff  that's in the older Disney classics (especially since Luke served his mission around a lot of people who practice it) but other than that, we loved the show.  Especially our princess Tianna! When it ended she threw her arms around my neck and said, "thanks Mom!"

Another movie we've been wanting to see is NEW MOON. I couldn't wait for Luke and I to finally get the audio book version from the library to see the movie, so I went with Joy in November.  We finally got our copy and finished listening to the book on Monday... so since we were already at the theater, we decided to risk it, and stay for the late show so Luke could see the movie. 

We fed Adelia her bottle and she fell asleep, Tianna fell asleep in Luke's arms about 5 minutes into the show, and we were able to see the movie we wanted without having to make a second trip AND without having to worry about babysitters. It was awesome!


Thursday was my Cookie Exchange/Christmas party I hosted for girls in my neighborhood and ward. We had a good turn out and lots of food and yummy cookies. I ate too many of them already!  This whole diet plan is just not working out this time of year.... i have no will power! Ah well, that's what we worry about after New Year's right?

Just a glimpse of what was to come!

I just love parties! It was really  nice having a girlie get-together. Thanks everyone who came! You helped to make my Christmas Merry and Bright!!!

LUVIN' me some winter!

Finals over.... TIME TO CELEBRATE! And that is what we did! We spent the weekend at the ol' cabin with some good old friends.  We had a wonderful time with them relaxing, EATING, playing in the snow, talking and laughing, playing games, EATING, and simply enjoying ourselves to the fullest. We were missing a few... hope you can make it next time! To the Merrells and the Langfords- THANKS FOR COMING! Hope our craziness doesn't scare you into never coming with us again! : )

The snow was great! Adelia had her first experience in it and I think she'll be a fan like her big sis! We did however, put the poor girl right to sleep! Speaking of Miss Adelia, she turned 6 months old on Sunday! WOOOOOOW! She's such a joy in our lives. She's starting to sit up by herself and it's so fun! Crawling can't be too far off either.

Sunday morning we awoke to no power (yes we were at a cabin but we're use to having power there --- lots of it!) so we empravized with the wet hair and sent Luke down to the parking lot to warm up the car and clean off the 10 inches or so of snow.  By the time he did that, refilled the wood pile, and got ready for church we loaded up in the snowcat (thank goodness for that!!!) and hauled ourselves off to church. By the time we finally reached it, we found locked doors... the power must have been off there too. So we hauled ourselves back to the cabin and had our own "church."  Then we watched it snow all afternoon... hoping that by the time we had to leave the roads would be plowed more.  Luckily they were and we all made it home safe and sound!

I love this time of year.... there are so many fun things to do (inside and out)  Luke isn't getting to work full-time during the break which means less money... but more time to spend together! Yesterday we took the girls to see the BIG GUY!  Tianna was surprisingly shy.  Adelia just smiled at him and wouldn't let go of his beard.  Tianna is making it easy for him to please her.  All she said she wanted are "crayons and paper".  I think Santa will be able to pull that one off!

  

Last night for FHE we made our own little gingerbread house.  What could be more fun than the holidays?! 

As promised, here are the pictures of our house and tree!! As usual, they look better in person than on camera.  We got our tree from Scofield this year and have again used the Peacock theme.  It's fun having a real tree again-- especially one so big it has to go on the landing!

 

To explain the basket.... for FHE 2 weeks ago we talked about baby Jesus and Him needing a soft bed. So when Tianna is a good girl she gets to put "straw" er rafia in a basket for him.  It works really well.... when we remember to do it! I like it better than saying "Because Santa's watching...." I still do it, but I'd much rather her want to please the Savior than just get presents from Santa.  

Well... gotta go clean the kitchen floor for my upcoming COOKIE EXCHANGE PARTY on Thursday! So excited!!