We kicked off the holiday season with a crazy trip down south. We took some family pics and enjoyed some time with everyone. It was super wonderful to see the family but this trip ended up being a bit more than we could bare. Baby S threw up on the way down. His skin turned kind of ashen and I was in the back checking his pulse and breathing every 15 min or so-- I can be kind of paranoid sometimes. Craig and I were completely wiped out. Everyone wanted cleaning done before the week of Christmas so we had spent that week working our butts off. Then we woke up early the Saturday before Christmas to drive down. We got a hotel Saturday night but staying at a hotel one night doesn't always mean rest, especially with 4 young kids. Then on Sunday we stopped to make a few more visits. We were supposed to drive back that night but my mom called and said there was a big storm up north. So we got a hotel for that night. Everyone in Craig's family was getting sick, and the illness did not spare us. Big H was up all night throwing up, and Little H started in the morning-- That's what I get for forgetting my On Guard. With illnesses and staying an extra night we were low on clothes, so we did laundry and bought some things to get us through the extra day. Then in the morning we had to go and buy some towels and puke buckets for the ride home. We thought about visiting some more, but Craig and I agreed we should just go home. We were exhausted and still hadn't gotten a good nights sleep to recover, and now everyone was sick. Big H and Little H threw up the whole way home. All the kids wore diapers because it was coming out both ends. We got home and we all took naps, then when we woke up Little M started puking. It was miserable. The next day I was sick in the morning and I went without eating and drinking all day in hopes that I could avoid throwing up again. Our van was a horrid mess and, since we hadn't been able to spend much time together as a family, we decided it was well worth the investment to take it down to the detailing car wash.
On Christmas Eve we threw together a Polar Express Adventure for the kids. We decorated the van and drove the Spanish Fork's festival of lights. Then we drove up the canyon where we ran into Santa-- we never really saw him because everything went dark-- and he left a special gift for the boys, two My Little Ponies movies.
Then Craig and I stayed up until 5:00 in morning helping Santa with Christmas-- this is what happens when you have absolutely nothing wrapped prior to Christmas Eve.
Needless to say the boys had a great Christmas!
Little M is way into Planes.
We weren't sure if we were going to pull out this Trampoline for Sammy-- because we had so many other things already-- but he wasn't really into his other gifts. I'm glad we did because he was so happy when he saw it.
The rest of Christmas was spent with family.
Sometime after Christmas we went up to Temple Square with my parents. I haven't been up to see the lights in years. In fact, I think the younger half of my kids haven't ever even seen the lights.
We stopped at Deseret Book to see the Candy Bomber display. Monty was constantly disappearing while we shopped, and each time we found him back here playing with the display-- don't worry it was meant to be played with, but I just wasn't meant to deal with the fear of turning around every 5 seconds to find that my child was missing.
Everyone is tired, cold and hungry. And everywhere to eat is so, so busy. We ended up at California Pizza Kitchen-- by the way don't go to California Pizza Kitchen, huge rip off!
I was super thrilled to find that Macey's brought back the Candy displays. Macey's bought ZCMI, and ZCMI used to have a tradition of putting up candy displays in their windows every Christmas. I was sad when the tradition stopped, but now it's back. It was very hard to get a good look though.
