A Christmas to Remember

And I'm not using that phrase to be cheesy. No, this Christmas was truly one to remember, mainly because just like Thanksgiving, the stomach flu decided to visit our house again with a vengeance! Here's a rundown of the past few days at our house...

Tuesday: Gavin came home from preschool saying that he didn't feel good, and ended up throwing up late that night. I felt so bad for him since he dealt with this just a month ago! But as usual, he was a sweetie about it and never once complained.

Wednesday: Gavin woke up feeling much better, so we decided to head down to my parents' house for their annual Christmas Eve party. We had a great time with my whole family, starting out with an awesome dinner compliments of Martha Stewart... er, wait, I mean my mom! (Seriously, my mom is the best cook - eating her food makes me want to move back home!). :)

We then moved on to an intense game of Christmas Bingo. Ha ha, bet you've never heard of playing Bingo on Christmas Eve, have you? (With the exception of you Christensens!) Well, it's a tradition my grandma started years ago when we were young - all the grandkids would play Bingo for fun little prizes she had bought and wrapped for us. We loved it and always looked forward to it! And even though my grandma has been gone for 16 years now, that tradition of her's has stuck like glue in our family. We still do it every year, though the prizes have changed slightly (my dad buys fun prizes for the kids, but the adults typically get funny or white elephant prizes). We love it, and Christmas Eve wouldn't be Christmas Eve without it! (The picture above is of Gavin holding up one of our most memorable white elephant prizes from this year - a random hippo plate with a plate holder!)

After that, we exchanged gifts with everybody in our family. I got some awesome gifts, such as darling picture frames from my parents, a new church bag, political books (of course, ha ha), cute serving bowls, and money for food storage. Greg got a bunch of money for his car and some movies. And the boys, of course, got spoiled with toys. I didn't take a ton of pictures, but here are a few I did get...

Gavin with his favorite present of the night - a Curious George stuffed animal.

Poppy helping Ty open a gift.

The boys in their Christmas pajamas and slippers.

Finally, at 10:30, we went outside to pack up our car, only to realize there was an inch of new snow on it, and the snow was still coming down. We rushed to get our stuff in the car and get going before the weather got too bad. The roads weren't too bad through Utah County, but the point of the mountain was terrifying. The wind was howling and you could hardly see where you were driving! Fortunately, the weather cleared up not too much longer after that and we were able to get home in good time.

Early Christmas Morning: As expected, Santa came in the early hours of Christmas morning, spoiling our kids once again! Also, I had a big dinner planned for Christmas day, so I had set my alarm for 4:00 AM to get up and put a roast in the crock pot. Well, when my alarm went off, I woke up to see that our bathroom light was on and that Greg was no longer in bed. Yep, you guessed it, Greg now had the stomach flu! So I spent the rest of the night in Gavin's bed, hardly sleeping and worrying about Greg.

Christmas: I was woken up at 7:45 by a very excited Gavin, saying, "Mommy! Santa came and brought me the train I wanted! Come on!" Sneaky boy... :) I then heard Ty screaming from his crib, "Mama! San A Caw!" (Santa Claus) :) So the three of us all headed downstairs to see what surprises Santa had brought. Gavin got a new wooden train track, Shrek the Third, and a stocking full of fun stuff. Tyler got a Thomas the Train track set, Bee Movie, and a full stocking too. The boys played with their toys for quite a while, and patiently waited until Daddy felt well enough to come down for presents. Then the spoiling began yet again! (Seriously, I have no clue where we are going to put all these toys!) After that, Greg headed back to bed again and I tried my hand at assembling all the boys' toys. If you ask me, I think I did a pretty darn good job! :) The only thing I was unable to assemble was Tyler's new wagon, and Greg was able to do that later in the day when he was feeling better. Since it was kind of a crazy morning and it seemed I was always busy helping one of the boys with something or another, I wasn't able to get too many pictures. But here are a few I did get:

Gavin with his new train track.

(Santa left us a note informing us that he originally thought this would fit on Gavin's train table, but was sadly mistaken when he started to assemble it on there. He had to reconfigure the whole track to make it fit! Good job, Santa! :) )

Tyler checking out his Thomas train track.

Opening more presents... as if they needed more! :) (I cut back a ton this year, and was so worried the kids wouldn't get enough. Boy, was I mistaken!)

Opening Ty's new wagon. Both boys were so excited to open this since it was so big! :)

Playing with the Geotrax Quarry that my parents gave Gavin.

Tyler checking out his new set of wheels. :)

The day ended on a much more positive note with Greg finally feeling better. We were all able to sit down and play with the boys for a while, which was a lot of fun.

Well, we hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and that you were actually well to celebrate the day! :) -Ash

***P.S. If you have any more patience left in you, check out the blog below about Gavin's birthday and other craziness! :)