Christmas Eve

New Jammies
New Jammies
We have had a few parties recently and are enjoying seeing lots of family and friends. We had our Nettesheim family party on Saturday and really enjoyed the Festivus. The Ginger Bread Houses turned out as beautiful as they always do ( that’s a sarcastic beautiful.) The Ham was delicious. Present exchange was fun and the kids did a great job acting out the birth of Christ. I LOVE this time of year!!
On Monday Night we went to my Aunts house in Orem and represented my Mom’s part of the Johnson Family. Her Parents were there and their other 2 daughters. Six of my cousins were there with their families. We ate dinner, visited and then listened to Grandpa tell some past Christmas memories. A good time had by all.
And last night was the BYU vs Oregon State in the Las Vegas Bowl so we had to party with the Hancock’s – Â the obsessed Cougar fans! Dan Brown was hired out to grill some good meats and we all ate too much and enjoyed watching everything go BYU’s way in the game. Tonight I think we’ll take it easy and gear up for the Christmas Eve festivities and the Christmas is here!!!!
On a side note – we played outside yesterday!! The snow is sticking around but the sun was actually out and Benji was having fun Shattering the snow ice. Cali played outside for a bit but I made her come in and watch from the window…
This morning I built a fort for the kids – they are loving it…
and the more annoying part of the Cali problem is that I have been trying to get her eating schedule figured out with the switch to real milk, trying to get the constipation and stomach aches under control. So today I was making sure not to give her her bottle too soon and I ended up with a hungry grouchy baby. Do I go get her out of bed or do I let her cry herself back to sleep?
This is all 4 families ready to drive to Cabela’s:
and all of the Cousins with Santa: 3 of the 4 families are missing their youngest child in the group shot – why are little ones always afraid?
After Cabelas we all had lunch together and then that night a group of us went to the Hale Center Theater in Orem and watched “A Christmas Carol” – they do a great job with that play – we all loved it – my husband loved it the most. He is a Christmas Maniac, his middle name should be Santa or Nicholas. Sunday we got together with some of my extended family for my cousins baby blessing. And then we were off to the Hancock Wassel party – where I got to drink Grandma Robertsons Christmas Punch and eat too much and visit with friends. That was our fun weekend. That 2 and half days always goes to quickly, then you throw a party or two in and it really flies by.
This is just a fun picture of Packer, Benji, Camry and Pacen – we hadn’t seen these guys in a week or two so they were happy to be back together last week and the fruit by the foot was obviously the cause for smiles in this pic.
Here are some tunes to try out… Â It’s a new link since yesterday – takes you to the online listening page…
http://bnetty.com/christmas-home/?page_id=99
and … we got our Christmas Tree!!
Ben with his apple pie! I must say that this truly was the BEST apple pie that I have ever eaten! and the best pie of our Thanksgiving Feast. Hands Down.
Cali was a mama's girl the whole time. Everyone wanted to play with her but she had a hard time warming up to it all.
Here's Ben chatting with his sister and dicussing Ninja's or something with the oldest neice and nephew.
We really had a fun trip. Benji and Packer thought the airplane was pretty neat. Flying with 3 young ones wasn’t easy but we managed and survived and we learned that if you buy tickets for 2 people with the same name they will give away one of your seats and make checking in difficult! Thanksgiving dinner was in Wisconsin with Ben’s Grandmother. She takes us all to her country club so we didn’t cook or clean, we just enjoyed the food and the company and the Packer game of course. We spent Thanksgiving day with Grandma and some of Ben’s aunts and uncles and siblings. I caught a cold and Benji and Cali caught the pink eye that was going around – so we took it easy today and will jump back into real life in a few hours when Monday morning gets here and my alarm goes off for me to go running… ughh I shouldn’t have eaten so much pie!
It feels good to accomplish things. Other good things I have done recently… Gone running a few mornings a week. It is hard to get out of bed but it is always worth it, especially when its done.
I finally got my bathrooms sparkly clean – they were literally beyond disgusting and I am going to not let them get to that point EVER again. I’m grounding myself from blogging unless I have clean bathrooms. We’ll see how that works.
My lesson on Sunday was just not flowing and then it all came together, everyone participated and it turned out to be my best lesson yet. I like when that happens.
We got our family picture taken. I don’t know why that is such a hard task but it is. And we got it done. Yipee for us. And that same day I took myself and all 3 kids to get Flu shots!
And Benji did great in his primary program. He stood and said his part loud and clear and he sang all of the songs. I could even pick out his voice amid the 70 other kids on a song or two. Way to go Benj – we are proud of you.
And some not so good things this week would be when I left the front door wide open when I took the kids out for a walk. It was the kids that used that door BUT still my fault, the mom is supposed to check those things.
And the insane amount of PUMPKIN that I have consumed by way of Cookie and Pie can go on the not good list – it’s as if I can only eat the stuff in November and I am not letting it pass me by this year.
Benji muttering to himself, “I hate when Mom says just a minute!” I must take more than a minute and I must say that often. I will work on that.
Not so good would also be the mandarins that I bought this week. They are horrible. No taste. 1000 seeds! They say California mandarins and I believed it. These mandarins do not compare to the real ones that I ate every year in California.
I almost forgot about our awesome night at the cabin mansion in Park City. We went for a night with some of Ben’s family. It was a fun get away. The kids were loud and crazy but the house was so big that we could barely hear them. Our boys are champion hot tubbers now. Cali cut her top teeth while there. I snuck out to the outlets. We played some games, relaxed and it was the PERFECT start to the Holiday season! Now I’m pumped for Thanksgiving. And to get to bed… after raking I did some packing, cleaning, playing at the park, 5 quarters of basketball, babysit cousins night and just finished the day with a soccer game. Good Night.
Here is our cute 11 month old
She Loves to play Peek a Boo these days.
The View from my Hot tub!Packer is still our Fruit Eater – I love how he lined up all of his peels here and he gets them real clean.
This is when Joel was entertaining the boys – we can almost get the rakes out, just a few more leaves need to fall.
Cute boys! They are posing with Flat Stanley who came form grade school in CA to visit and see what UT is like.
And this little Monster thinks that it is ok to eat the sand! arghhh