Christmas 2012

I'm sad to say that Christmas has come and gone, along with another year.We had a wonderful Christmas with all of our family.

Friday night we went up to Wellsville to have Christmas dinner and presents with the Cardalls. Right as we got to the pool house, which was about 8pm, the power went out through half of Cache Valley. So we pulled out a bunch of candles and Cade hooked the Christmas tree up to some sort of battery...and we had Christmas by candlelight. It was an unplanned, not ideal situation that turned out to be a very memorable one. The kids had so much fun playing in the dark.

We all ate dinner together, which had been cooked earlier (luckily), and then the kids all opened their presents from Grandma and Grandpa. Eddie got a dump truck, tractor and some pj's and Tommy got some cute clothes and a little peek-a-boo bunny.

Our plan had been to stay the night in Wellsville, and then head up to Montana early Saturday morning. But with the power being out, and it being very cold and only getting colder, we drove to the next town over to get a hotel room at about 11pm. And then, all hell broke loose...

Eddie decided that was the night to learn how to climb out of his playpen. So he refused to sleep. All he wanted to do was play. We tried to get him to sleep on my shoulder, in the pen, in bed with me, in bed with Dan...but he didn't have any of it.

By about 1am I finally got him to lay down with me. I thought we were all about asleep when Welcome to the Jungle starts blaring from the clock radio. Apparently Eddie had not to sleep and had crawled onto the end table to play with his new found toy. We finally got it turned off by Dan yanking the plug out of the wall, but it was too late, Tommy was crying now.

So I finally got the kids back to sleep at close to 2:30am. By this point I'm thinking we should have just driven all night to Montana, cause Dan and I weren't getting any sleep anyways. I think I dozed off somewhere in there between feeding Tommy and Eddie kicking me and about falling off the bed.

But lucky us, the clock radio had a back up battery in case it got ripped out of the wall by an angry hotel guest and we woke up to a blaring alarm at 5:45am.

But we got a few minutes of sleep somewhere in there and did make it up to Montana on Saturday. We had a great weekend with the family.

Monday night, Christmas Eve, we spent with all the Merg's at the firehouse. And Tuesday Cole and Shannon came over to have gifts and lunch, then Dan had to leave that afternoon to head home so he could work Wednesday morning. Me and the kids stayed until Saturday.

John and Mom ended up getting the flu Christmas night, then I caught it Friday night. I think it was the worst flu bug I have ever had. It always seems like someone ends up sick when we get together. It's just too bad it got 3 of us!

Eddie copying Grandpa on his phone

This is Eddie playing with Ken and Sue's dog Chief. Eddie loves to play with puppies, but he usually has an allergic reaction and his eyes will get all red and swollen. Usually we just watch him real close then try to wash his hands before he can start touching his face. But he was having so much fun with Chief licking him and jumping on him we just let him play. The poor kid had such a bad reaction we ended up giving him some benadryl. But the drugs and a bath took care of it fast.

Eddie didn't really get into opening presents. He would start to open one, then get bored and move onto the next thing.

And of course it wouldn't be Christmas without a few tears shed...

We had such an amazing Christmas together as a family. It was fun to see Eddie with his new toys. Next year will only be better with Tommy being older and Eddie really getting into the whole Christmas thing.