The Holidays in a Nutshell (a really big nutshell)

This year's Christmas celebrations were both exciting and exhausting for us. There was a lot of travelling back and forth, and there was a lot of fussiness going on between our two children who did not make their bedtimes AT ALL during the holidays. Anywho -

As it turns out, both Ryan's family and my family have their big Christmas celebration on Christmas Eve. So far, we have just tried doing both parties in one night, but I'm thinking that next year we are going to start alternating.

Ryan's family get's together at Grandma and Grandpa Birch's house where we all enjoy a tasty ham dinner with homemade honey mustard sauce (my favorite!!), caesar salad, rolls, and whatever other tasty treats others decide to bring (we made Magic Jell-O Parfait). My favorite part of the night was watching Jaeda tackle Jacob - and if Jacob stood up, Jaeda was yell, "No! Lie down!!" ....Then she would tackle him again.

Towards the end of the night, we opened presents and got some pretty sweet stuff. I have a terrible memory, so it's very possible that I left something out:

Laura made is a way sweet alphabet book - Jaeda loves it! Grandma and Grandpa got us a book by Neil A. Maxwell that I am looking forward to reading. They also got us a set of DVD resources referring to the Doctine and Covenants and church history - I'm very excited to look into it. Julie and Aaron made us a delicious plate of goodies - not pictured.....because we ate them (hmm....it's not letting me upload the picture....).

After presents, we left to make it to my family's house. We got there just in time for Christmas carols. Now, usually the tradition is to stay up til midnight, then open presents. Unfortunately, there are too many grandkids with bed times and too few rooms at Grandma and Grandpa's house. My parents were kind enough to push the time to ..... 8:30 or 9 so we could all get home sooner.

April and Andy got us a cute little fondue kit. I am so looking forward to using it! They also got Jaeda a princess puzzle and got us 2 tickets to a hockey game plus babysitting. I wanna say they got something for Cael too....but I just can't remember (I'm bad....I know). Diana got me a pair of socks and got Jaeda a Minnie Mouse doll, Minnie Mouse bini, and a matching Minnie and Mickey toy with their own cars. Cael got some toy blocks and balls from both great grandmas. Both the kids got some fun books....aaaaand.... someone (I think mom and dad) got Jaeda a Dora and Boots bath toy. Mom and Dad also got us a gift card for HuHot (for which I am super excited for). Many lollipops were given and I don't remember who they were from, haha.

After presents, we had the almond/rice pudding!!! We had rice pudding with strawberry (usually raspberry...but this year was different) topping. The tradition is to stick one peeled almond into the rice pudding, and whoever finds the almond in their pudding gets a prize and one year of good luck! I SOOOO wanted it this year, but Chase found it. He won a cool fondue kit (so it's good I didn't win....cuz I already got one of those for christmas!). After rice pudding, everyone busted out the desserts they brought - of course, we were all too full after eating rice pudding, so the desserts pretty much went untouched, haha. ....We went home.

We woke up the next day and were too excited to wait for Jaeda to wake up - so we woke her up. She was really tired - as soon as it lets me post pictures again, I'll get the pictures up. We opened presents and Jaeda had a blast! We got her a puzzle that she plays with daily, slippers that she hates, a few dresses, some pajama sets, some white board markers, and an easel!!! She opened it and thought it was a TV, haha. But we showed her how it worked and she loves it! I love watching her draw. We got Cael some toys to chew on - I don't even know what t hey're called, haha. Ryan got me a sexy pair of black boots, some bath towels, and Avater in blu ray with the extended version and lots of special features. I got Ryan pajama pants, a Zags sweatshirt and an old Navy sweater - I also got him The Dark Knight in blu ray and a PS3 game.... Dragonage Origins or something like that.

We then made breakfast - French toast, sausage, and eggs with orange juice.

We watched a movie, then headed over to my families to say marry christmas - then went to the Birch's and opened presents there. Jaeda got a cool microphone toy that broke before she finished opening it....then it broke again after she opened it by dropping it and stepping on it!! She still uses it daily, though - so it was an awesome gift! She also got a cool sleeping bag. She was zipped up in it and then exclaimed "I'm stuck!" She loved it. She also got a rubiks cube from uncle Nathan. Cael got a toy train (that Jaeda likes to take over ...because she loves trains).... and we got a lamp to take camping with us. Matt and Rachel got us another book by Neil A. Maxwell that I'm looking forward to reading...along with a gift card to ...... I forget what its called.... the shooting range by SCC... which is way cool because we found out that on Friday's rentals are free and if we share a lane we only have to pay for one of us. We're excited about it. We had treats and played Who What Where (a super fun game).

This is so long ..... I'm just trying to finish it up

On New Year's Eve we went to Birch's house where we played games (mostly just Redneck Game of Life....or whatever it's called). At midnight we drank (sparkling cider) and kissed (tee hee.... I should specify that we just kissed our significant others, haha) then packed up the kids and left!

OKAY!! Sorry this is to much to read - I hope everyone had happy holidays and I wish you all a happy new year!