December... ETREME CAUTION! Post is very lengthy!

It SNOWED A LOT here during the month of December... so much so, that often times I needed some extra help shoveling the walkway and driveway; I have Noah to thank for helping me out.

Sometimes Noah had to "take a break" to taste the snow...
We even got enough snow to build plenty of BIG snowmen, ice forts and dig ice tunnels!
(P.S. Next year I think I'll make the boys a snowman kit- in the picture above Spence and Noah
had to use a roll of duct tape for the mouth, figs for the eyes and a carrot for the nose; when things started to heat up the figs
started to melt- so the snowman looked like he had mascara running down his face.)

I felt pretty bad about not doing anything for Spencer's 30Th birthday even though he's the one who suggested we not celebrate it... so... two or three weeks after his birthday the boys and I decided to SURPRISE HIM! Truth is, Noah was the one who thought to surprise Spencer for his birthday- he wanted to make a cake and give Spencer presents-he talked about it for weeks since Spencer's "real" birthday; it sounded like a good idea- and I knew it wasn't something Spencer would be expecting this late after his "real" birthday, so the boys helped me make a yummy eggnog cake for Spencer and we bought him a really nice Bose Ipod Portable Sound Station Dock. I was supposed to pick Spencer up this particular evening by the carpool lot next to Thanksgiving Point (he had just gotten off of work and his carpool often times drops him off there). Upon picking Spencer up, I suggested that we go over to Thanksgiving Point and eat at their little deli (we LOVE eating at the deli there- the prices are decent and the food is actually really good- the boys especially L.O.V.E. their ice cream bar- free ice cream for kids 3 and under). Before we ate, we stopped to look at Santa's reindeer that were out front by the tower.

Noah kept calling this one "Rudolph" and told him to "fly away" at least 6 or 7 times;
he was disappointed he never did.

After eating at the cafe, we went home. I tried to tell Noah not to spoil Spencer's surprise by talking to him about it before the "SURPRISE", but what would you know- that's ALL he talked about the entire drive back to our house! Thank goodness Spencer had NO IDEA what Noah was talking about; I pretended as though Noah was talking about his cousin Izzy's birthday party, who just so happened to have a birthday that particular weekend. When Spencer walked in the house he walked right past the cake and the present that was sitting on our kitchen counter top; he really wasn't expecting our surprise. Enough said about the night- eventually... after a few minutes, he asked who's birthday we were celebrating and that's when we SURPRISED him and told him the cake and gift were for him! He's not one to show his emotions but I could tell by that twinkle in his eye that he appreciated the thought and work that the boys and I put into making his evening special. We ended the evening by putting the two younger boys to bed and letting Noah stay up late to watch the new movie we picked up earlier that day- "Horton Hears a Who"... we expected that Noah would fall asleep watching the movie since we didn't even begin watching it till nearly 10 o'clock- but what would you know, it was Spencer and I who crashed on the couch just 20 minutes into the movie and not Noah. When I woke up during the final credits I found Noah still WIDE AWAKE (did I fail to mention it was midnight)!

DECK THE HALLS...
I L.O.V.E. the way my house feels and smells during the Christmas season... whimsical Christmas decorations give my house instant character- I LOVE IT!
While I love all the Christmas decor in my home- I do HATE putting it up. Spencer spared me some angst this year and took the initiative to decorate the Christmas tree; Noah and Ian helped too. The boys did an excellent job decorating our tree; the proof is in the picture below.

HOWEVER... a day or two after they decorated the tree, Ian decided to take it apart piece by piece... while I was upstairs one morning making the boys beds, gone for no more than 10 minutes, Ian took EVERY silver glass bulb off our tree and threw them onto the tile floor in such a manner so that EACH bulb shattered into hundreds of tiny little pieces! When I got back downstairs it looked like a silver mine BLEW UP in my kitchen! I'll spare you all the details about how I reacted or how long it took me to clean up the mess, (at least a good hour of vacuuming and sweeping- thank heavens for the Dyson!) but lets just say I wasn't very happy that morning and Ian went down to nap MUCH earlier than usual. Much to my relief, he only received a tiny cut on one of his fingers- nothing that really seemed to even bother him... I thanked my lucky stars because it could have been A LOT worse.

Look really close at the picture above and you'll see the Nativity Puppets I made that are on the top shelf of the bookshelf; (I don't own my own Nativity Set yet because I still have yet to find one I ABSOLUTELY LOVE; I'm picky when it comes to Christmas decorations...- anyways, this year I saw these puppets and thought they'd look good in place of a nativity) I wish I could take credit for creating them completely on my own, but truth is, I found the kit to make them at a local scrap booking store. The night I was gluing them together Spencer had a bunch of friends over for a podcast and one of his friends said the puppets reminded him of South Park characters- to which I agreed. I think I chuckled every time there after I'd look up to see them on the shelf.

Spencer's sister Megan watched the boys one evening while we were away at a work party (dinner at Thanksgiving Points Harvest Restaurant, YUM, and a sleigh ride in the bitter cold to see the Christmas lights). She kept Noah busy for some of the time by decorating a gingerbread house with him.

By the way, I think I mentioned in October's post about how I have NO PATIENCE and lack any talent for pumpkin carving,
the same rule applies to gingerbread houses; I have ZERO patience building the things but Noah saw a kit for one at Costco one day and begged me to buy it for him so I caved and did just that...

imagine what a relief it was when I came home to find that Aunt Megan helped Noah build it already!

The Sunday before Christmas, the 21st, I hosted Christmas dinner at our house for Spencer's family; we also invited our friend T.J., Mata and Eden to come and eat with us. We ate two kinds of hams that I baked, mashed garlic potatoes, french green beans with slivered almonds, bacon and brown sugar, rolls with honey butter, spinach cranberry and walnut salad topped with a homemade raspberry vinaigrette and asparagus wrapped in prechutto. For dessert I served Chocolate Fudge Cake (the really fancy kind from Costco that I always see in the store and wish I could eat if only I wasn't deathly allergic to it) and peppermint ice cream. Oh, I nearly forgot, I made eggnog to serve during dinner... normally I won't drink eggnog; Spencer's family however will chug it down like water... this eggnog I made was SO GOOD! (I MUST add a note of thanks here to my dear friend Janae for sharing the eggnog recipe she posted on her blog). I think I made a gallon of eggnog every night during the week of Christmas and after just a few hours the pitcher would always be empty!

Coincidentally, the 21st happens to be Spencer's older sister Holly's birthday; had she not passed away when she was 4, (I'm still not sure exactly what it was that killed her, I think it may have been some sort of staff infection she contracted while Spencer's family was working for the church in Tonga) she would have been 34 this year (I think, though I could be wrong). In realm of it being Holly's birthday, after dinner we watched at least a good hour or so of family movies that had her in them. I'd only ever seen a few pictures of her before, so it was nice to see more of her on film and become a little more acquainted with her. She was so CUTE! She was the only one of Les and Linda's 5 kids to have blond curly hair; she was a doll. Is it just me or does Noah kind of resemble her- same cheeks, same nose, same expression...

Below is a picture of Holly dressed up for Halloween;
since this picture was taken either in '75 or '76, I think it's fair to say that Madonna stole Holly's original style!

The picture below was taken either in Hawaii en route to Tonga or in Tonga where the Campbell's lived for a little over a year.

The two older kids on the left are Spencer's oldest siblings, Laura and his brother Aaron, and the little girl on the right is Holly.Some people say that a picture can speak for itself...
I love this picture, it's such a precious picture of Holly.
I think Spencer's dad took this picture of Laura, Holly and another friend while they were in Tonga.

My family came to town on the 22nd. My parents drove up here from San Diego, along with my sister Janna and her 3 children. My parents rented a hotel near our place for the time while they were here visiting us (Janna and her kids stayed with us for two weeks during Christmas and New Years and my parents stayed in Utah for nearly a week before they flew out to New York to visit my grandparents for another week; my parents flew back to Utah on the 3rd of January and stayed with us another day before packing up and heading back home); my sister Janna and her kids stayed with us in our guest bedroom.

It's not often that I get to see my family from San Diego so we LOVED the time they spent here with us! My boys especially couldn't get enough of their cousins Idrese and Paresa; Noah probably only gets to see Paresa 3 or 4 times out of the year, but he NEVER forgets to include her in his prayers! It was nice for me to get to visit with Janna and see her relax some since in San Diego she's such a busy teacher and mom. I also enjoyed the time we spent together getting to know Kyse, Janna's youngest child, who's only 2 months older than Cohen; he's such an GOOD baby! Kyse never had a frown on his face- he was always grinning from ear to ear!

The evening of the 23RD we all caravanned and drove up to Kaysville to enjoy Christmas dinner at my sister Celeste's house. My sister Celeste and her husband are AMAZING cooks, so of course, Christmas dinner at their place was fabulous! It was fun having the whole family together, (with the exception of Jeff and Corina and their new daughter), since it's not often that we can be. Noah absolutely L.O.V.E.S. his cousins and was in heaven playing with them. I don't know how he does it since he's so much younger than the majority of his cousins, but somehow he manages to ALWAYS lead the pack... he's a natural born leader- watch out Capital Hill!

The boys never did get the chance to meet Santa Claus this Christmas; I don't even remember hearing about any "meet and greets" around the county; maybe Santa snubbed Utah County after what kids like Noah did to him last year.

Remember this photo??? Good old elbow to Santa's rib.
Since I didn't get any descent pictures of our entire family together this year, I decided it would be funny to make a post card out of the boys picture taken with Santa from the year before. Usually I like to make our Christmas cards by hand, but this year I had neither the time nor the creativity to design one on my own; instead I paid a FORTUNE to have Costco print my Christmas postcards. I ordered the cards online a week and a half before Christmas; I even paid the extra $10 on top of the normal shipping charges to have the postcards printed and mailed OVERNIGHT to me- I didn't want to disappoint any family members or friends by not getting their cards mailed off to them before Christmas... anyhow, to make a long story short, the cards didn't arrive until the evening of Christmas EVE!!! Yes, Christmas EVE! A week and a half after I ordered them, just hours from Christmas itself, and apparently OVERNIGHT shipping means NOTHING to the Costco photo lab!!! I was furious! but of course by the time FED EX dropped my postcards from Costco off on my front door step, Costco was already itself closed for the holidays- I'd have to wait to unleash my fury on someone else until after Christmas was over (how appropriate). I promised myself I would call and DEMAND a refund just as soon as Costco was back in business- there's no way I was about to send out Christmas cards with my children sitting on Santas lap after Christmas, but what would you know, I NEVER did get around to asking for a refund, other things occupied my time and my thoughts, so until a week or two ago the package of 40 unaddressed Christmas postcards laid untouched on top of my computer desk; I reckoned it was too late now to ask for a refund back on them so I kept one as a keepsake and tossed the other 39 in the trash.

FACT: $40+ of our hard earned cash went down the drain on never mailed Christmas cards. Lesson learned: I should ALWAYS stick to making my own.

My apologies to anyone and everyone who waited for our family's card to arrive in the mail; now you know why one never came.

Here's a look at what the actual message read..

Spencer and I agreed we'd try and make Christmas pretty simple this year for our little family. The boys would get 1 present each from us as a couple and 1 present each from Santa, along with a group gift that all 3 of them would share. Originally we thought we'd get them a drum set- yeah- the rock 'n roll sort, but soon after Spencer suggested we wait another couple of years before doing so; I'd already been looking online at a few different drum sets for youngsters so I was a bit disappointed he didn't want to get one any longer, but sure enough it was wise he suggested we wait- I've had enough headaches since Christmas; wouldn't want to add to the pain by letting a 3 year and a 1 year go crazy on the drums all day long! In place of the drums, I found a tool bench the boys could hammer and drill at from The Land of Nod (this online store has some really cute toys, all made of good quality materials and fine craftsmanship and the prices are totally descent. A lot of the stuff actually reminds me of Pottery Barn Kids things, only much more affordable.) Along with the tool bench from The Land of Nod, I also ordered Ian a tin drum he could bang on- (it's MUCH quieter than the "real" thing)... he LOVES making NOISE!!! I found Cohen a cute little Jack'N the Box from a baby boutique in Salt Lake that is TO DIE FOR (Babinskis),his Jack 'N the Box plays the "Teddy Bear Picnic Song" and has a cute little bear that pops out of it instead of the "usual" scary looking clown. Noah's been really interested in doing puzzles lately, so when I saw THIS wooden puzzle... in a Discovery Store Catalogue, I thought it looked like something Noah would LOVE to piece together; I had only one problem... it took some SERIOUS online searching to find a vendor who still had the puzzle in stock; The Discovery Store was sold out of the puzzle until March and even the manufacturer had backorders until May- apparently everyone else thought the puzzle would make the PERFECT gift for their child or grandchild too. Lucky me though, with help from Google I managed to find 1 still in stock through www.uncommongoods.com . I also found this cutie patooty Snail Numbers puzzle.... LOVE IT!
I may not have successfully gotten our Christmas cards mailed out in time this Christmas, but there was NO need for me to panic in terms of getting Christmas shopping done, thanks to the good ol' internet. Who needs to mess with crowded stores during the holidays when I can do ALL my shopping from the comfort of my own home?! ....

Well almost all of my shopping... while I found most the things I needed online- there were two toys I needed to actually go to the store for. I DESPERATELY needed to find 2 of these available to buy! Remember my post earlier about how impossible it was to find any of these available either in store or online?! (if not, click here). Well I needed 2 and I searched every store in Utah County for just over a month trying to find any of these still in stock, with no luck. HECK, I even called every darn toy store in the state of Utah looking for one of these, and when that wasn't helpful, I called every store in San Diego looking for one of these. They were out of stock EVERYWHERE! Seems they were a HOT ITEM this last Christmas and EVERYONE wanted one but no one could find one. Just as I was ready to give up the search, I decided to call my local Toys R Us store just once more to see if they could have gotten any in stock; it had been over a month since their last shipment arrived... they hadn't received any at the time, BUT... the person I was speaking with told me they were supposedly going to get 10 of them shipped to their store overnight that night!!! Toys R Us didn't open till 7 a.m. that following morning, but I was waiting outside their store by 6:30 to be first in line to buy two of their Playskool Bounce Back Racers. During the time I was checking out, only 10 minutes after the store had opened, I heard 4 other customers hurry into the store and ask for the racers. I'm sure all 10 were gone with in the first 30 minutes of opening!!!

The morning of the Christmas Eve I woke up early to run a few last minute errands; didn't want to get stuck at crowded stores later in the day. While I was out I remembered to pick up a pregnancy test- something I'd been meaning to do for the last two weeks since I thought there was a chance I could have been pregnant. I got my shopping done pretty quickly (it's AMAZING how much I can accomplish when I don't have the boys distracting me); I even managed to make it back to the house before the boys and our houseguests woke up! While the thought was still on my mind, I remembered to take the pregnancy test and what would you know! in just the matter of seconds it read positive! Christmas came a little early to both Spencer and I; baby #4 was on it's way. (If you want to read more baby news, click here).

Christmas Eve is my mom's birthday. My sisters and I decided to get together on that afternoon and take my mom out to lunch. All the nieces were in attendance too (with the exception of Rayanne, Celeste's oldest daughter- I'm not sure what she was busy doing). Again, it's not often we all have the chance to dine out together since half my family still lives in San Diego while others of us live here in Utah. Good times catching up with my sisters and there girls... it's not often I get to hang out around ladies- usually I'm busy doing "boy stuff" with the boyz.

Did I fail to mention that out of 20 grandkids, my parents only have 7 granddaughters!

Later that evening, after dinner, we got to watch a sneak peak of Adam Sandlers "Bed Time Stories". Opening day wasn't until the following day, Christmas day, but since my sweet mother in law manages the Scera Show House, she invited us to come and watch the movie Christmas Eve. MUST love the serious perks she gets by managing the Scera that she can offer to us as family! Both of Spencer's sisters came, along with his dad and the Campbells family friends, Mata and Eden. I invited my parents, my sister Janna and her family, along with Tricia's family to come and watch. It was nice having the ENTIRE show house just for our own personal use!

It was already late by the time we got home from the movie, so Spencer and I hurried quickly to get the boys all to bed. I still had gift-wrapping to do, eggnog to make, and preparations for Christmas morning that needed to be done before I could hit the sack. Spencer needed to assemble the tool bench we bought the boys and stuff and hang the stockings. I think I made it to bed by 2 a.m.; I'm lucky I actually made it to bed- I remember my parents saying sometimes they never slept the night of Christmas Eve because they spent the whole night putting together bikes or dollhouses!

All the presents set out before the Christmas tree; waiting to be opened!

The gang on Christmas morning...

we made the kids all wait on the stairs before sneaking a peak at the Christmas stash in the living room; we adults needed a few minutes of our own to get dressed and the cameras ready. I've heard of some families opening up ALL of their Christmas gifts by 6:30 or so... that DOES NOT happen in our family. I don't think any of the kids were awake before 8 and it was at least 9 before they could look in their stockings. This was the first year that Noah was REALLY excited about Christmas and gifts; I think it helped having the older kids around to help encourage his excitement!

By the way, our stairs are a bit steep so generally I hold onto the railing while I'm walking up or down them. I was still a little sleep deprived by morning... I had the hardest time getting my eyes to uncross- that's just HOW TIRED I was and somehow while I was walking down the stairs I managed to miss the last two steps and took one long stride and crashed onto the tile below. Spencer was right behind me and completely unsure of what just occurred- in one second I was up walking down the stairs and in the blink of an eye I was down on the floor rolling around because I'd hurt my foot. SERIOUSLY, I felt like I SHATTERED all the bones in my right foot. Like a soldier though, I couldn't dwell on the pain for very long- the kids were ALL ready to open their presents, so I let loose one last scream and sucked in the pain for the rest of the day.
Santa left my nephew Idrese a pair of Jazz basketball tickets in his stocking; the game was for the following night. Noah and Ian found some yummy candy, along with a chunk of coal- yeah, I guess even Santa knows that though were both NAUGHTY some, they're too cute and irresistible to keep presents from. Paresa found some Littlest Pet Shop dogs and candy in her stocking and the babes, Cohen and Kyse received kaleidoscopes. What kid doesn't love a kaleidoscope?!

Janna's youngest, Kyse, trying to figure out what was in his stocking.

We tried to keep some order while unwrapping Christmas presents by taking turns. I don't think my older niece and nephew cared much to take turns unwrapping their presents- they were just eager to see what they got; our younger boys didn't mind too much- in fact it took Ian at least 20 minutes or so to get over the Reeses Peanut Butter Cups he received in his stocking- forget the toys, he just wanted the candy!!!

The following are a few pictures taken while unwrapping gifts...

Idrese got a Tony Hawk Skateboard... he wanted to ride it right away but was disappointed when he remembered he couldn't because the sidewalk was COVERED in snow...
poor kid's not used to snow, just sunny weather being from sunny San Diego!

Paresa with your CLASSIC "show 'em what you got from Santa dear..." expression on her face.

Kyse wasn't sure whether to play with his new toys or the gift wrap...The boys L.O.V.E.D. their tool bench!Here Noah demonstrates safety first...Our little drummer boy, Ian...Cohen preferred to just chill with his toys on his "'raffe" rug
{what I really meant was giraffe rug, but the boys call it "'raffe" instead}The boys had a blast playing with their bounce back racers. The things zip around super fast and do flips. We set a rule immediately and told the boys we were only going to replace batteries in the car twice a month.
Gotta regulate and keep with in the budget!A while back, while visiting my family in California, I'd gotten the boys 4 of these books while visiting the San Diego Zoo; they've enjoyed reading the books so much since that I decided to ask my parents to buy the other 8 volumes to complete the set. Breakfast Christmas morning... breakfast Christmas morning is ALWAYS a tradition in my family and a big spread! My parents joined us. We ate yummy ham, eggs, country style potatoes, pancakes (I like mine gluten free, yes I do), fresh fruit, and croissants with honey butter, eggnog cake and drank fresh eggnog. Yummers!Can't forget Ian who prefers to dine in his own high chair.

We considered going to a movie that evening, but it SNOWED all day long and the weather wasn't very permitting; it was a VERY WHITE CHRISTMAS (don't believe me?... I actually STOPPED shoveling the snow from our driveway on Christmas EVE cause the snow just wouldn't stop falling!). Here's a picture of the snow in the backyard at grandma and grandpa Campbell's. Tons of it! Just on the drive over to my place Christmas morning, my dad managed to get his BIG Toyota Tundra truck stuck in the snow. No worries though- he worked his way out of the snow and we enjoyed plenty of time relaxing around the house Christmas evening.

The morning following Christmas Day, we woke up early and headed down to Spencer's parents home in Orem to open up Christmas presents they had for the boys. The boys really made out like banchees this Christmas even with the limitations we set on how many gifts we'd get each one of them. They got all sorts of neat toys, but probably the coolest toy came from Grandpa Campbell. He ordered this light up, spinning, flipping, racecar off of the Home Shopping Network after he heard I wasn't having any luck finding the bounce back racers. The boys love the car and all it's wild tricks it preforms- now if only we can fix the antennae on the remote that later got broken while we had more house guests over for a football game.

This was another "favorite" toy the boys received from Grandma & Grandpa Campbell

A BRAND NEW MARBLE SET!!!

That same afternoon we met my family at the movies and watched "Marley and Me". The movie was a tearjerker for EVERYONE in my family because it hit so close to home since my parents owned two blond Labradors at two different times during my life; our Labs names were Bridgette and Buddy. Buddy was the younger of the two; Spencer and I gave Buddy to my parents 4 years ago on Christmas day as a puppy. He died two years ago after being struck by car. Outsiders who don't quite understand my family might think it's silly still how emotional we get thinking about our Labs, Bridgette and Buddy, but they were almost like siblings... almost. Sometimes, I swear my dad treated them better than us- they were spoiled rotten. In fact, I used to get Christmas cards from my dogs each Christmas- my dad thought it was funny to sign their names on the cards. Anyhow, LOVED the movie- I didn't read the book before hand, but I swear, along with everyone else in my family- maybe the author of the book wasn't really writing about his own dog- I think he must have met my dad and Buddy or Bridget once or twice at the dog park, or the beach- or maybe in Doggy School for Obedience. Both of my parent's dogs failed obedience school- they were ALWAYS used as the bad example during class. Spencer doesn't yet know this, but the next addition to our family after baby boy #4 arrives will be a dog- a blond Labrador to be exact (click here if you want to read a little bit more about our Buddy).

That evening, after the movie, Spencer took my nephew Idrese to the Utah Jazz basketball game in Salt Lake (remember Idrese received two Jazz game tickets in his stocking just the morning before from Santa). Spencer thought it would be fun to make it a guys night out with the men in my family so he also invited my dad to come along and met my brother in law, Jim, and his two sons at the game.

My nephews at the Jazz game. Alec, Idrese & Christian.

That next day, during the evening, Spencer and I went to watch "Benjamin Button". We both really enjoyed it, and enjoyed even more so the time away from the kids. My sister was kind enough to watch all of our boys along with her own while we went out for the evening.

We didn't have the chance to go and look at Christmas lights in Temple Square Salt Lake before Christmas, but didn't want to miss the chance of seeing them again this year, so I packed Noah and Janna and her kids in the car, left the two younger boys with Spencer, and met my sister Tricia, her husband and some of their kids at temple square that Sunday evening following Christmas. The lights were just beautiful, and somehow or other, over the last few years I've managed to miss the international nativity scenes the temple displays on the east side; I never knew they were there until this year. I fell in love with this traditional Korean one. Oh by the way, it was FREEZING outside and who wears sandals to walk around temple square- well not me, normally I would- it's just my nature, but instead this time Trish did. Can't take the So. Cal. spirit out of we Truesdell girls!

Kyse and Noah sharing a stroller. Kyse was dressed from head to toe in winter gear, layer over layer;

it's a fashion this little surfer boy is not used to being from San Diego.

The week after Christmas was over seemed to move by A LOT slower than the previous three months had. I refused to still yet take down the Christmas decorations for two obvious reasons, 1. because they looked so GREAT in my house & 2. because I was being lazy. Who likes to pack Christmas decorations away anyhow?!

We found time that week to visit the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum with Janna and her kids. Noah learned quite a bit about the dinosaurs as he followed his cousin Idrese around; normally he doesn't let me read him the details about each dinosaur on exhibit but he wasn't opposed to allowing Idrese tell him about them!We also set time aside one afternoon to go up to the Gateway Mall in Salt Lake and visit the Childrens Discovery Center. We actually have a family pass there, but it had been a couple of months since we had last been. On this particular visit Ian seemed to really enjoy the ball room; I had a hard time getting him to follow us to different parts of the museum.

Janna with Kyse and Cohen.
Boy I bet those two kiddos wished while they were at the museum that they were just a tad bit more mobile
so they could go off and play with the balls!

On one afternoon, my sisters all met up with their children at the movies to watch "Despereux"; thank my lucky stars I have the BEST SISTERS EVER and they took Noah along to watch too so that I could hang back and get a nap in while the two younger boys, Ian and Cohen, were sleeping.

For a few days while Janna and her family vacationed here in Utah with us, her two oldest kids went to spend time at their other cousins houses. It was on these days I made Noah catch up on missed sleep and while the kids weren't sleeping, they were learning all sorts of new trades.

Cohen finally learned how to sit up in his Pod.And it didn't take Noah long to learn how to put together his new alphabet puzzle. To be 100% honest, Mom (me) still needs to use the picture any time I put this puzzle together; it's a bit tricky.
We didn't do anything special for New Years Eve... IN FACT I just started to feel the first symptoms of morning sickness earlier that day and hadn't yet gotten a prescription for Zofran to help ease the sickness, so I was as useless as a sack of potatoes all day long to both Spencer and my children, as well as Janna and her own. Janna took her kids over to Tricia's house to celebrate the new year and I hit the sack just minutes after we laid the boys down to go to sleep. Poor Spencer spent a lonely New Years Eve playing Halo (come to think of it though, while I'm here pitying his circumstances, he never did complain about it once). I remember very little about when I did wake up briefly that evening- it was just after the stroke of midnight, some neighbors near by were shooting off fireworks and having a LOUD party- they're college kids- and not the BYU type college student. The next morning our street was LITTERED with champagne bottles!

I wasn't much of a fun hostess for our guests those last few days my sister and my parents stayed and visited with us. I was really starting to feel nausceous and pukey from the pregnancy, and to make matters worse, Cohen and Ian both became sick. While I LOVED having my family come and visit me, I was happy to have my household return to normal; the kids and I all desperately needed some "down time".

We had a very busy month, December. It seems pretty pathetic I'm only now blogging about it 4 months after the fact, but hey, busy we've been...

I'm grateful for the fun we had, for the memories we made and shared, and for the blessings we have as a family- food, water, a home to live in, clothes to wear, and special instances, like Christmas when we can show our loved ones, even strangers, how much we care about them by giving them gifts. Most especially I'm grateful for my Savior, Jesus Christ, for his love, his teachings and his atonement.

I may have failed in getting our Christmas cards sent out this past Christmas, but it's never too late to wish all my dearest friends and family members A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Oh yeah- before I forget, I need to add these last couple of pictures- technically they weren't taken in December, they were taken that first Sunday in January, but since my parents were still around I figure it's okay to still go ahead and add them in this post.

Cohen and Kyse; a difference in age of just a little over 2 months,
but not too much difference in size.

Grandpa Truesdell holding Cohen. Look at the smile on Coey's face!
He doesn't get to see his grandpa very often but sure LOVES the time he spends with him!

Noah advanced from Nursery to Sunbeams the first Sunday in January. Here's a picture of him I took just before he and Spencer headed off to church.
And lastly, to complete an incredibly LONG post, I thought I'd throw in this picture... I'm not sure exactly when I took this picture- had to be sometime during October when it was still short weather; but look how CUTE it is! I found Cohen doing his "SEXY MAN POSE" all by himself on the couch one afternoon. He actually likes to pose like this a lot come to think of it.