Christmas Fun Times

Ruby's beautiful Christmas dress is from Grandma Karen.  I love the faux fur collar on her little shrug.

Our tiny tree and little pile of presents.  We wrapped Oreos and egg nog to bulk it up a bit.

Snow overalls and fur hat!!!!!  Thanks, Grandma Joyce!!

We heard Ruby laughing so I went to check on her.  Clothes were strewn about the room and she was giving Dolly and Tigger some juice.  She now does this all the time, I love it!

As a special treat I gave Ruby a whole Oreo to eat all by herself. She LOVED IT.

We watched Holiday in Handcuffs and visited the Provo Instacare (it was no big deal) and ate an awesome pot roast and soooo many Christmas Cadbury chocolates. Mini Eggs in December? HEAVEN!!!

I am Home for Christmas

My favorite Christmas song is "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"--the Bing Crosby version.   And not just because it's the song in my favorite X-Files Christmas special, How The Ghosts Stole Christmas.  The words are just really awesome, and they've really hit me especially this year.  "Through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow. Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow."  This year, the fates did not allow us to visit any family.  The day before we were going to drive to Amarillo to spend Christmas with Kyle's family, the weather got really bad.  The roads were closed for both routes we could possibly take.  It was too dangerous to do with Ruby and flights were crazy expensive.  Our disappointment at not seeing the Vaughns and Fanellis is pretty extreme.  We've had to work extra hard at feeling Christmasy--it's just not the same without family.  We are having fun by ourselves, but it definitely feels like this is a year where we "have to muddle through somehow."

The most disappointing thing was not seeing Kyle's family and friends.  The second most disappointing thing was not going to Rosa's, the best Mexican place on the planet.  To make up for that part at least, Kyle said we could go to Costa Vida as often as possible. So far we've been on Thursday and Friday, and we plan on going for dinner on Monday as well.  That makes it seem like a special vacation to me! I know it's ridiculous, but it has been super fun and decadent.

I had my presents for Kyle delivered to Jennifer's house in Amarillo so Kyle basically had nothing to open at our place. And Ruby only had one present from us, because we were certain she would get plenty from our families.  Soooo of course we had to go shopping for more presents so we got the full Christmas morning experience! On Friday night we shopped at the mall and the Riverwoods and bought ourselves presents.  We took them to Kelsie, who wrapped them beautifully at her gift-wrapping station at the Riverwoods.  That definitely made me feel Christmasy :)

Today we went to Aunt Diana's house for a family Christmas party.  This DEFINITELY made me feel more homey.  It felt familiar and fun to be with my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins.  Ruby had a blast with all her cousins.  We set off fireworks, sang songs, and ate a ton. I died and went to heaven when I ate a bacon-wrapped date--oh my gosh, it was amazing.  I am so glad we had somewhere to go, and got to spend time with family and not feel all alone. After Ruby went to bed, Kyle and I watched How the Ghosts Stole Christmas because I HAVE to watch it every year.

I am happy that tomorrow we get to go to our own ward for the Christmas service.  The two families in our ward that we are closest to are here for Christmas as well, so we're going to all sit together and feel like family.  Church is at NINE--I know, right?--so after church we'll open presents and laze around and eat pot roast and enjoy ourselves.  Just our little family.  I think it will be quiet and nice.  I'm hoping that without all the normal Christmas stuff that we're used to, we'll be able to focus on togetherness and the Savior and establish some of our own traditions. (We already have--Christmas Costa Vida and a Christmas car wash.) So it has been and will continue to be a fabulous Christmas, albeit different from what we expected.

Sneaky Baby

Ruby went into stealth mode while I was washing a mountain of dishes today.  I didn't even know she was in the kitchen with me until she got my attention with a delighted squeal.

Needless to say, she was very proud of herself and had a very wet bottom.

Have Yourself a Merry Ludichristmas

Yesterday was our 4th Ludichristmas celebration, and it was awesome.

Lots and lots of presents.

Dinosaur heads adorned our tree.

This year's Ludichristmas mascot.

I didn't take many pictures but we filmed the entire thing :)  Not much to blog, but we won't forget how fun it was.

Feeling Christmasy

The Christmas spirit came and hit me in the face yesterday. It was awesome!  Sadly, I think it has to do with presents.  The UPS guy came with several packages for us to put under our tiny tree and it really pumped me up.  Plus, yesterday we did our Ludichristmas shopping at Honks with our friends, which is the best fun of the entire year.  I came home and wrapped all the presents (18, because I wrapped Kyle's too) while listening to Christmas music and it got me PSYCHED OUT OF MY MIND with love and joy and cheer. Kyle decorated our house for Christmas while I was in Washington so I am just REALLY happy.


My Romney shirt came! I never want to take it off.  I also got a Romney onesie for Ruby, but it's for Christmas, so shhh.

Also making me extremely joyful is the fact that in two weeks, CHRISTY AND DANNY AND THE GIRLS ARE MOVING TO UTAH.  I cannot get over the excitement of this.  My family is coming up after New Years to move them in to their new home in Salt Lake City!!!!!!  I will always love the University of Utah for having a grad school program that Danny is interested in.  And I will always love Danny for getting into the U of U and moving his family here.  I wish they lived down the street from me, but being in the same state is also acceptable. This is the only gift I need this Christmas.

I'm obsessed with makeup lately, which is really weird. The girls in my family were never that into makeup, because Mom wasn't I guess.  But Ashley got me into Bare Escentuals and I am in love.  I now want EVERYTHING.  I am very excited for one of Kyle's gifts to me this year...

Half of my family will disown me, but I have to say it: I love Michael Buble's Christmas album.  I listen to it everyday on Spotify.  Mock all you will.

family pics

As predicted, the rest of the family pictures are nothing special.  I apparently wasn't having a very cute day.  But I still like them, because we were in a beautiful place and my husband and child are very attractive.  

Surprise!

I LOVE surprising people. Especially when I know that it will be a HUMONGOUS DEAL.  So when Ashley and I had the idea to go Washington and visit Celia and the new twins, we got really excited for the opportunity to surprise her. We called Cheryl to make sure it was okay that we stay there, and drove there on Thursday.  I left Ruby at home because bringing another baby into the mix would defeat the purpose of us going there to be helpful.  (I underestimated how horrible it would be to say goodbye to her and miss her for 4 days. It was terrible! I'm never leaving her again.)

Well, Celia was certainly surprised.  When we walked in the door and came up behind her in the kitchen, she just looked at us with confusion and shock.  She then burst into tears and ran to get her inhaler.  It was a very satisfying surprise!

The babies are amazing.  Eliza is adorable.  Celia is awesome. Nathan is...another A adjective...athletic and assertive.  It was really fun to get to know Nathan's parents, Cheryl and Rex.  We drove for an hour to the Tri-cities to take Celia out on the town--shopping and the new Costa Vida! We played Guillotine, ate a lot of junk food, and watched the GOP debate (along with plenty of trashy tv). It was awesome!

Cheryl gave us a seminar on our seasons--I am spring, Celia is autumn, and Ashley is winter.  Here we all are in our colors.

We held Ezra and Elliot and played with Eliza, who talks and plays and is a little Princess.  I love them all to pieces.

Ezra is in the red reindeer jammies, Elliot is in the green stripey jammies.

The babies are SO TINY.  Little Ezra isn't even 5 pounds!  They are also the sweetest, quietest babies I've ever seen.  They didn't make a peep the whole time I was there!  They sleep all day and eat really quickly.  They are so easy to love.  And SO IDENTICAL.  I had to memorize who was wearing what and had which blankie, because there is no other way to tell them apart!  Nathan and Celia says that Ezra's face is smaller, but it is really hard to tell.

Eliza has grown up so much in the last 5 months.  We played lots of games and I gave her her first manicure.  She is very affectionate and made me feel like she really loved me.  I got to do her hair and gave her a pink princess nightgown that she danced around in. I miss her already!

Seeing Celia was the best.  I love her so much and have been missing her and Nathan since they moved in July.  I hate that they live so far away!  Othello is a funny little town; Walmart really is the only place to go in the entire city.  It was worth the drive to get to hang out with Celia and her family for a few days.  It's funny, it didn't even seem weird to be with them again.  We hung out and did the same things like we'd never been apart.  And THAT'S how I know that we are true best friends!  I hope that it is like that forever.  I can totally imagine us getting together in 20 years, eating Muddy Buddies and watching Food Network. Sounds like heaven!

Riverwoods at Christmastime

Tonight Emily and I took our kids out to stroll through the Riverwoods to see the lights, get a glimpse of Santa, and play in the toy store.  Bonus: seeing Kelsie, who just started working at the gift wrap station!  We had such a great time.  Ruby had the time of her freaking life in Blickenstaff's, the awesomely fun toy store.  I had to drag her away.

I hope you noticed her adorable boots and coat.

We visited Kelsie in the gift wrapping room, and made the little kid craft (a paper bag Rudolph), and wrote a postcard to Santa.

We totally randomly ran into Ashley and her friend Emily, and we all saw some llamas.

Ruby did NOT like petting the llamas, she kind of freaked out.  I loved it though! They were so fluffy!

The llamas were there for Carollama, a group of people who carol with llamas to collect cans of food and donate them to local charities.  I was actually part of the very first Carollama my freshman year at BYU, when it was just a small group of us.  We split up in groups of 3 or 4 and each group took a llama and went to a different neighborhood.  It was awesome!  If you want to do it, sign up on their Facebook page.  It would be awesome to do with an FHE group if you're at BYU or stuff like that.

I can't believe it's still going, and is a MUCH bigger deal.  There was a KBYU news crew there, filming Ruby crying because a llama's face got too close to her.  The guy who started it, Ty, saw me and gave me a cool Carollama tshirt and asked me to talk to the camera crew and be interviewed about the very first Carollama.  By the time I got the guts to go do it, they were all done filming!  Phew.  I was NOT prepared to be filmed.  And I don't know what I could have possibly said, other than that I went to the first event because I was head over heels for Ty.  That would probably have been awkward, and is a subject for a different blog post.

Christmas Party!

The ward Christmas party was a total success!  It was fun to do, but I'm glad it's over and I can relax.  It's a good thing it was so early in the month so I still have plenty of time to get in the real non-stressful Christmas spirit.

Creepy, Ruby. Real creepy.

Katy and I folded these and painted them gold and silver. I love them.

If only we had more lights! These could have been so much cooler!

We filled about 8 million mason jars.

These were tricky to fold but everyone loved them.

Katy and I made this epic wreath.

This is my Christmas present from Kelsie! It's on my front door and I am in love with it.

                         

Kelsie and Landon.

Good food and a good program. Everyone was really complimentary and I felt great about it!  The most fun part: all the kids during cleanup.  They wanted to take EVERYTHING home!  Luckily I was usually able to oblige them.