Merry Christmas 2009!

Another great Christmas! Jon has had a crazy couple of weeks doing OB - - but truly it was fine. He enjoys delivering babies so even though the hours are crazy, it isn't as stressful as other rotations. Because they have less residents working, he has been able to be on "home call"- - because having the residents at the hospital the amount of hours they need is against the law. So they take call from home and it doesn't go towards their hours unless they are called in. This did make it so he could be home on Christmas eve instead of working! Luckily nothing was going on, and he didn't get called in. It made for a crazy week after Christmas, though- - for example, things got busy and he ended up being at the hospital 40 out of a 48 hour period of being on home call. I can't complain, though - - he was not on call at all on Christmas Day!! Also, my parents came again and that makes it so I don't feel lonely when Jon has to be gone during the holidays.

Christmas to me is all about family- and I had my family (Jon and the kids) including my parents with me- and it was wonderful! It is all about having a wonderful Christmas Eve feast and remembering our Savior on Christmas eve. It is all about enjoying gift giving and the fun Santa stuff for the kids on Christmas morning. It is all about enjoying each other's company with fun games, great food, and watching movies. It is so fun to watch the kids get so excited for their presents. I am so grateful for the bounteous blessings we have! We were able to provide (with help from good sales and christmas money and gifts given to us by grandparents) a modest but certainly wonderful Christmas for our children.

Christmas eve we made cookies for Santa- - always a fun treat! Even grandpa got in on the fun! I have to say that making sugar cookies is such a process and very messy, though the kids love it. Next year I think I will stick with chocolate chip or something else simpler. The kitchen was a bit crazy on Christmas Eve getting ready for our feast!





For our "feast" we had ham (mom and dad brought the best ham I have EVER had), funeral potatoes (which took FOREVER to cook- 2 1/2 times the normal time! I made way too much!), glass bowl salad, Dad's christmas jello (a Monson family tradition), broccoli bake, rolls, and Mistletoe Punch (another tradition- and was even served at my wedding reception!). I made a mint chocolate ice cream dessert and a black bottom banana cream pie. MMMMMMMMM. We truly are blessed to have such wonderful food so available to us. Leftover kept us going for several days! I also have a WONDERFUL casserole recipe to use leftover ham using rice, broccoli and a white sauce. MMMMMMM again.


Lillian had fun playing with her roll- making it into a "boat" for some of their Littlest Pet Shop pets . . . 3 year olds!!



We have two very special Christmas Eve traditions that go back to each of our families. My earliest Christmas memories always included doing a flanel board story about the Nativity. We continue to do this with our Children and do the story with reading directly from the Bible. Jon's family tradition was for each person in the family to get an ornament. Jon still has a box of ornaments from his Childhood. We get each of our kids a special ornament, and a family ornament to remember each year. When the kids leave home, they will have their own box of special ornaments to remember past years by.



Christmas morning is the time for Santa! This year, in addition to the candy in the stocking and presents, Santa left a race track for cars, and a model train!!


When I was a youth- one of my Laurel Projects for my Young Womanhood Recognition Award was to make Christmas stockings for my future children. I made four - - now my very last one has been used! I am proud of myself for managing to get Tyler's name stiched on his before Christmas!

(Stockings: The mickey and minnie ones are for Jon and Me, the ones on the bottom left with the red toe are my parents', and the others are the ones I made as a youth)


Toyland, Toyland . . . .some favorites this year- Leapster and games for the kids, lots of DVD's, Littlest Pet Shop for Cynthia (she has something like 60 pets now!!), Glo Station and Spongebob stuff for Marcus, Fridge Phonics, Dora stuff for Lillian, a game and a few other things for Jon (Power Grid), Psych (the TV show) for us and my parents, and I love my new slippers and portable CD player (for books on CD that I listen to while working around the house) and a beautiful quilt made by my sister. This and some other little things . . .







Funny story about Lillian. One of our gifts was the DVD "Up". It was the very last present we opened and we handed it to Lillian to look at. Since my mom had never seen it, we decided it would be a fun thing to do to watch it. Seriously, it had been less that two minutes since we opened it, and we turned to find it and it was GONE. Lillian no longer had it and we spent about an hour and a half looking for the silly thing! That is one way to clean up the Christmas mess. We scoured every room knowing that she had stuck it somewhere - - we even looked in the Toilet and in the Oven. Later my mom ended up finding it in the Laundry hamper in my room while she was on the phone with one of my sisters- it was a fluke that she even opened it up and looked in there! Again- 3 year olds . . . .


Speaking of phone calls- one of the great things about having my parents with us, is I got to talk to all my siblings, including my brother Brian who is on a mission. It was so good to hear his voice!

Thanks to all- especially my parents and Jon's parents- who made our Christmas a wonderful one!

Mom and Dad stayed until Sunday the 27th, so Saturday we had fun taking the kids to see the Princess and the Frog at the movie theater- such a cute movie. I loved it. That and playing lots of games with my Dad - - mostly our new "Power Grid", and his new "Railroads of the World" was our fun weekend!

We had a treat too when Jon's sister and her husband Deric stopped by to say hi- - they are in the area visiting from California. Deric's dad lives in the tri-cities, so they took the time to pop over here to say hi. It was after Lillian's bed time- it was so cute when she grabbed her blanket and laid down in Jenna's lap. What a great auntie! Thanks to Jenna for the gifts- we are especially excited about the DVD of old home movies of Grandpa Wilson.

Toys for Tots

I am going to make this a yearly tradition, or at least something like this. The first day of Christmas break we took the kids to Toys R Us and helped them pick out toys to donate to Toys for Tots. We had them use some of the Christmas money given to us. We explained to them that this is money they could have used for themselves, but instead are using it to help children who wouldn't get presents for Christmas. It was a bit crazy at the store, so close to Christmas, but I think the kids got the message about what Christmas is all about! I would love to hear how others have helped their children learn how to give at Christmas time. I am open to new ideas for next year!

Avatar

We saw this movie with some friends a couple of days before Christmas. Jon had been wanting to go - so we went on his only night not on-call and went to the movie. All I have to say is GO SEE THIS MOVIE while it is in the theater. It is amazing in 3-D. It is a VERY visual movie and thoroughly enjoyable, even to those who aren't into sci-fi/ fantasy. There is a reason this movie is selling out!

It's the most wonderful time of year . . .

I truly do love the christmas season. There is so many fun things to experience as a family. Mostly I love the general feeling of good-will among believers and non believers alike. Truly the spirit of Christ permeates the hearts of mankind. I love the magic the children sense, whether it is learning about the baby Jesus, or being excited for Santa (who represents the spirit of christmas) and new toys.

Overall, I have tried my best to keep things simpler this year, KNOWING that I can't handle what I usually do. Somehow things STILL seem to come up to make things busy and crazy- but truly they have been fun things such as parties (for Jon's work, church, and friends), and fun outings with the kids! Last Saturday was a good example of busy holiday activities! Early in the morning was a cub scout waffle breakfast to celebrate (I love my little cubs!). Then we came home, did our Saturday chores and then headed off to the Train Museum in Toppenish to see the christmas trains and ride the "polar express" to see Santa. That night was the ward "Night in Bethlehem" activity where after a themed dinner, Jon was the narrator for the live nativity. It was an amazing activity. Like I said, a busy and crazy day- but so much fun.

Pictures from the train museum:
They had so many different trains from small and large, and even a lego train!



mmmm- hot chocolate!

We rode the caboose a short way to another train that had santa! We didn't buy the photo, but the kids got to sit on his lap. Cynthia won him over by telling him she wanted her two front teeth for Christmas!



On Wednesday the ward had the Children's party, with caroling, crafts and Santa! Jon volunteered me to do a power point presentation of the carols- so the words to the songs and the music were all done on powerpoint. Along with some gifts I was scrambling to get done (I used www.heritagemakers.com to make some awesome scrapbook calendars for grandparents and my sister, and a swatch book for my brother on his mission) this keep my busy on the computer! It made things busy, but it was fun. The power point turned out pretty good, I think.
Santa! Though Lillian was to scared to sit in his lap . . .


Some other random December fun . . .

After some REALLY cold weather, we had our first snowfall! It is mostly melted now, and the fog has rolled in, but it was fun while it lasted, and I am guessing it isn't over for the winter.


Decorating gingerbread snowmen- (I used a gingersnap recipe, which was wrong for gingerbread men, and the dough was way to soft to roll out- so I just did the regular round scoop and put three different sizes together to form snowmen for them to decorate. They sure TASTED good though- much better than gingerbread men!)




Tyler cuteness- - I can't seem to post without putting some cute pictures of him!

Loosing my mind??

So I have been telling everyone that I am feeling GREAT after having Tyler and things are going really well. This week I finally came to the conclusion that maybe I am NOT doing as well as I think I am . . . I think lack of sleep IS affecting me more than I thought it was. I swear sometimes I am loosing my mind! I think that I have been feeling good EMOTIONALLY- I feel lots of energy in that regard, which is so much better than after Lillian was born when I felt a bit depressed. It is amazing how if emotions are OK, everything else seems OK. BUT after several times of completely missing the mark, I realized I am not super-human. I know I am not getting enough rest (mostly because of Tyler, despite my best efforts), but I push through each day becoming more and more tired. Being the mother of four children, especially during this time of year whe I have SO much to do, I don't really get to nap ever. I don't mind sacrificing my own rest for the rest of the family (I adore our new WONDERFUL little boy!)- and for Jon who has to work so hard, but the cumulative lack of sleep I think is finally starting to really get to me! In the last month or so, I have run out of gas for the first time in my LIFE, shown up to a visiting teaching appointment on the wrong day, and forgotten things needed for errands (like driving all the way to the post office to mail a package, and I didn't bring the address . . . Or not having my WIC folder at an appointment, or not having an insurance card at the doctors, OR forgetting the coupon I went specifically to a certain store to use . . . ). I have gotten times of events completely mixed up (on more than one occasion), forgotten names of people I know really well - - and even WORDS for every day things. I can't carry on a conversation without stumbling over my words or repeating myself. My husband laughs when I say things like "can you get me that THING, over by . . . (I never quite finish) . . . I also find myself craving sweets and diet soda. Hmmm- in the past I was a fairly well put together and organized person (at least I think I was!). What is wrong with me?? I guess I really DO need that sleep I am missing. I don't think it just started after Tyler was born, I think it has been going on ever since Jon started his residency- and just got WAY worse after he was born. So- how can I get back that rest I have been missing with the life I currently lead?

Christmas fun in Spokane and Tyler is 2 months old!

Tyler is two months old today! He is now smiling and getting into more of a routine (though he still is not super predictable). He is just starting to move his arms to bat at things- - and he LOVES to be where there are other people- especially mom or dad, or brother and sisters! We are SO enjoying him . . .

2 month well child checkup stats:
22 inches (16%), 12 pounds 2 ounces (59%)

Dressed in his "baby's first christmas" outfit:





Since we aren't able to go to Spokane at all during the holidays, we decided to take a short weekend trip to Spokane here in December. Jon had the weekend off, and although it put him farther behind on his paperwork and such- we had a great time as a family! Saturday we took the kids to see G-force at the Garland Theater (a discount theater in Spokane)- - what a fun movie. We visited Jon's sisters Chris and Cyndi and their families so they could see Tyler, and then finished off the day going to the Nativity display at the Spokane Stake Center including the Gospel Choir concert. The concert was a bit too loud for our kids and they only lasted a few songs, but it was lively and they were amazing! The many nativity scenes from all over the world were my favorite. The kids loved the room with the nativity puzzles, dress up, coloring sheets and other fun stuff!

Cynthia dressed up as a wise man:


All dressed up for church on Sunday:




After church and packing up, we headed over to Jon's paren's house in Libery Lake. They gave us our Christmas presents, since we won't be there for Christmas. I love Grandma and Grandpa Wilson's homemade gifts!!

***For any in the Wilson family- any of Jon's siblings and their families STOP READING NOW!!!!! I don't want to spoil any suprises for you. Just skip the rest of this post. Sorry Grandma and Grandpa Wilson- this is my journal and I wrote up this post before thinking about how it might give away what everyone else is getting for Christmas too. I really don't feel like deleting it - - and those who this affects don't read my blog very often . . . I figure it will be OK?? Sorry if it isn't . . .







Jon and I got a bird house and pillowcases made out of things and fabric salvaged from Jon's granma Mary's house (she passed away last year). I think the bird house especially is fun!


Tyler got a cute outfit, and Marcus got one of Grandpa Roy Marsh's pop can helicopters (Gma Cheryl's dad). I am so excited to have one of these- they are Grandpa Marsh's legacy!



Cynthia got a cute quilted purse made by Grandma Wilson- - she of course loves it. She even insisted on bringing it to school today . . .



And Lillian got a beautiful pillowcase with a matching dolly- again made by Grandma Wilson. She is so cute with that little doll! Before she could fall asleep last night, she had to make sure her little dolly was tucked in right beside her!




I feel like we get the best of both worlds. The Wilsons give us the best homemade gifts, and along with the large check MY parents give us (which covers most of what ends up under our tree)- we are set for Christmas! Thanks for the love and thoughtfulness! We very much appreciate it!