Holiday Highlights

A month ago we were enjoying the beginning of 2013. We had just said good-bye to the last of our holiday visitors a few days prior and were trying not to be depressed by that fact and were instead immersing ourselves in deep cleaning and projects. (By we, I mean me and an obliging but less enthusiastic Mike.)

For memory's sake, though Valentine's day is quickly approaching, here are some Christmas highlights, though I wish I'd taken out my camera a bit more. I think my mom has a few pictures I need to get my hands on.

♥ Christmas: All gifts were a success and I was happy that Santa didn't go overboard. Wooden blocks were the big thing this year and Emily's castle. The girls were impatient waiting for Em to get up and get through her stocking, as our littlest one is still at that magical stage where they are enthralled by everything, be it wrapping or gift, and can spend a good five minutes with each item before moving on.

♥ Christmas dinner at the in-laws was delish. Mike's parents took care of all the food and the place settings were so pretty. We also were lucky enough to visit with some of his siblings and their families. Funniest part of Christmas was Emily diving in the tub, clothes and all, when I was getting them bathed and dressed for bed before the drive home. Except I forgot Em's pajamas and obviously couldn't put her back in her wet clothes. Luckily, due to a random cut that got blood everywhere during the family concert a couple days prior, we had borrowed some rather baggy little boy pajamas. I was going to return them to my sister-in-law, but instead had to put her back in them. Glad we had more than a diaper, because it was cold!

♥ Some Wii action: I need a couple hours just me and a wii by myself to get comfortable, so I can stop embarrassing Maggie and Kate by my lack of skills. So far I have found the kinnect to be more intuitive. But Tara on the other hand is a Wii master. And humble about it too, I might add. It was fun to get to see Tara and Scot, as they were in from Utah.

♥ My sister Catherine came into town, also flying in from Utah. Unfortunately, she didn't arrive until the wee hours of Boxing Day thanks to some terrible delays--a broken luggage belt and problems at the parking terminal, all after an unplanned layover in Nebraska because her plane ended up low on fuel somehow. (How they allowed that to happen, I do not know. Maybe it's hard to guess how much fuel a plane will burn?)

♥ Les Mis: All the ladies (Mike's mom, Jenn, Tara, Nadine, Cat, and me) went to see Les Miserables and enjoyed it. I hadn't listened to the score for a while and it took me back to high school when we sang a Les Mis medley. I wanted to break out singing, though I refrained so I wouldn't embarrass anyone. But belting out the songs with my sister and harmonizing all the way home was pure joy.

♥ More visitors! My mommy came to see me and my baby sister Rachel. (Thanks again for driving twenty+ hours to see us!! It means more than you know.) We enjoyed Christmas festivities all over again with them and loved every minute with them, even if the visit came to an end all too quickly. I told the girls they could have a sleepover with Rachel in the basement the first night and they were happy to take me up on it. I was surprised they all fell asleep...but shows how tired they were.

♥ 6 Years: Mike and I celebrated six years of married bliss. We went out to Coldstone for some ice cream thanks to a gift card and some babysitting from my mother. It was almost as awesome as last year when we went out to dinner, then opted for Mike's "kind of fun, kind of ghetto idea" of dancing at his office, came home to look through our wedding scrapbook and were surprised by the chance to dance some more in our basement. My sisters and mom had decorated and set up music for us--Catherine spear-headed that effort, no surprise.

♥ Monkeying around: Rachel wanted to see my niece Emma while she was out, as they have gotten together a couple times when my family has been out this way and become friends. My nieces came over to play and everyone went to a place called Monkey Business (a play place with blow-up inflattibles) while Mike and I were on our date.

♥ Ringing in the New Year: We rung in the New Year with the girls a little early, with some previous years' festivities on YouTube. The party blowers and goblets of sparkling grape juice were a big hit. Even with poor Kate who had the stomach bug earlier that day. (Poor Rachel had it right before she left and poor Maggie got it later in the week.) Then we rang in the New Year again alone when midnight came.

As we were YouTubing earlier in the evening, I couldn't help but think of last year when Cat and I couldn't figure out how to watch the ball drop because Mike was chaperoning a stake youth dance and our TV wasn't working right. I think we ended up celebrating about eleven minutes late and with the wrong year's ball drop on YouTube. That was also the night I made Catherine walk to the store for real swiss cheese, because Mike mistakenly bought the imitation, and we didn't have the key to the other car or something, and we needed the cheese for Emily's blessing luncheon on New Year's. Then we stayed up crazy late baking chocolate-peanut butter chip cookies and cleaning the kitchen. Good adventures.

And if you got through that, aren't you digging my heart bullet points? Forgive me for bragging, but I feel so nifty for learning how to do those. Computers are amazing. So are google searches.

P.S. Don't tell me if you've known how to do them for ages. Let me have my moment.