Christmas melodies...

Okay so Christmas has been over now for nearly two weeks and I still have all my Christmas decorations up... Pathetic huh? Actually I've just been too lazy to take them down. You don't think Spencer would mind if I left them up until Easter do you?

Totally kidding. Well, I'm going to try and make this entry brief, if that's even possible for me to do. (I'm a person who naturally appreciates detail- I hate summarizing). I think the video I put together is a good enough representation of how our SINS 2007 Christmas was. (Sorry, some of the text in the movie gets cut off. I didn't do it on purpose- the program I used to upload the movie onto blogger did it).



You see, this year, we chose to stay in Utah for Christmas. At the last second I was almost tempted to pack the kids up and Spencer and head down to San Diego for a quick Christmas visit, but I resisted the urge.

I was impressed with this Christmas- it actually snowed Christmas Eve- a lot!!! I've only spent one other Christmas in Utah before and when I expected it to snow that year on Christmas Eve or morning, it didn't!!! I was SO dissapointed cuz it didn't snow, it didn't rain and it wasn't sunny then; it was just gloomy! Give me SNOW or SUNSHINE for Christmas, that's how I like it! (remember I'm from San Diego,CA- every Christmas there is SUNNY and 75 degrees!)

Christmas Eve, we usually do something with my family, since it's my mom's birthday, but not this year. They weren't close by to visit with, so Spencer and I assembled toys for the boys. Correction, Spencer assembled, I did the supervising and wrapping part.

We put the boys to bed at 8:30 Christmas Eve, but Noah was too anxious for Christmas morning to arrive, he stayed up until 11:30 that night banging on his drums and playing with his toys. I was amazed Ian managed to sleep through all of his raucous!(I actually caught him up on camera- I used night vision to sneak up on him).

Christmas morning I woke up early to get showered and watch the Disney Parade on ABC (it's something I've always done every Christmas since my existence). The boys didn't wake up until 10a.m.- the usual time they always wake up.

Noah was interested immediately in finding out what happened to the yummy cookies we left out for Santa. He didn't even greet us with kisses like he usually does, he just demanded to know where the cookies went. It took Noah a minute or two to understand that he actually had permission to OPEN the presents that were under our tree. He cared more at first about the candy that was in his stocking than his presents, but after sugaring him up with a couple of Hershey's Kisses, he started to unwrap his gifts. Ian on the other hand, knew immediately as soon as I sat him down in front of a present to rip it open- he went CRAZY unwrapping gifts. The boys got a TON of presents. Clothes, art supplies, books, books, and more books, cars, some musical instruments, a dancing barney, some plush characters, a SUPER DUPER Train table that is HUGE and difficult to assemble, a mission fund piggy bank for Noah and lots of MONEY! I'm sure I forgot a lot of things- they had so many new things by the end of the day, it took me almost the entire following day to put them away!!! These kids get OVERLOADED with gifts on holidays, partially due to us as their parents, and grandparents, and great grandparents, and aunts and uncles and cousins.

Spencer gave me a Cricut Expressions machine and some cartridges for it for Christmas. I'm totally excited about using it- I've only used it briefly up until now.

I surprised Spencer with round trip tickets to New York City so he could attend the AWP Writers Conference that is being held in Time Square at the end of January, first of February. I knew he wanted to go to it, cuz he mentioned it a couple of months ago, and he would look at the ad for it in his Writers magazine practically every night, but I knew he wouldn't book a flight for himself or actually make plans to go, so I proceeded to surprise him and do it all for him. I even asked his parents to pitch in and they covered his conference registration fee.

I'm a bit jealous he's going to N.Y. city without me- maybe I'll have to take a quick trip somewhere else with the boys while he's gone. Perhaps San Diego???

It was fun watching the boys open their gifts- they both had a great time, especially Noah- he asked just a day ago for Santa. Maybe now he's expecting Christmas to come every week!

By noon- we'd finished unwrapping our own gifts with the boys, so we joined Spencer's family for more gift unwrapping and yummy food. Actually, I didn't eat much of the food at all- I wasn't feeling good- I just started getting what I think must had been the flu Christmas morning.

Us adults played a little bit of Rockband on Spencer's XBOX 360. I gave it another try at the drums, but I don't play too well, so I resorted to singing the lyrics- I rocked that! We had time to catch a little mid-afternoon nap, before the fam and us went down to Provo to watch "Alvin and the Chipmunks" at the movies. It was cute- kinda slow- but Noah liked it and it was fun watching it with Spencer's parents and sisters.

We had quite the Christmas, a busy one, at least for me. I missed not getting to see any of my family on Christmas, but I don't know how in the world we would have found the time to fit anything more into our day! I was quite relieved once the boys bedtime arrived and they were asleep cuz I think I crashed just afterwards!

(P.S. I guess that wasn't very brief huh? Well I tried).