Catching up...

It practically feels like a crime to post pictures from December on my blog, seeing as how it is now February and a little less than 2 weeks away from Valentines Day but hopefully my readers can forgive me and understand, I've been busy... Busy with what??? Well, that's still yet to be determined... sort of... January is just one big blur in my mind of trying to regain our health and overcome colds, doctor appointments, preschool, trying to catch up on sleep we missed in December and attempting to de-clutter and finally organize our closets, cabinets & drawers through out the house. I've started to do some spring cleaning.

Consider it luck I didn't take any pictures on Thanksgiving, otherwise I'd have to blog about that too... while I don't have any pictures I will make mention briefly that we hosted a beautiful Thanksgiving brunch; we invited Spencer's entire family to feast with us... B.E.S.T. IDEA E.V.E.R. to have a brunch early in the day in place of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner.  I wasn't feeling much in the mood to prepare a big 20 pound turkey (the thought alone made me uber nauseous, seeing as how I was still only 16 weeks pregnant at the time and still VERY pregnant sick), I also didn't like the idea of eating it and having left overs from it packed in my fridge for the following 2 weeks, so in lieu of preparing and roasting a turkey this year, I fried up some turkey bacon, baked a ham, made corn bread pudding, Spencer made egg nog french toast which we topped with an egg nog glaze and fresh whipped cream and for those who didn't want egg nog french toast, they could eat pumpkin pie french toast topped with apple-cranberry compote sauce and all the other french toast fixin's... there was home made cranberry sauce, country fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, roasted asparagus and a fruit salad... The spread was heavenly and it was nice enjoying downtime with family.

December zipped by... We kept busy by attending Christmas programs, like the one seen below that the boys participated in for preschool...

... Of course we had to build a gingerbread house... in our case, it was a gingerbread village.  Have I ever told anyone how much I HATE building and decorating gingerbread homes??? My boys L.O.V.E. to make them so I let dad (Spence) command Project Gingerbread Village...

 

It didn't snow much in December (BIG disappointment! That's when it's actually FUN to have snow outside...) but for the time or two it did snow we built a snowman... Ian was absolutely POSITIVE that once we put the snowman's hat on, he'd come to life just like Frosty!  I mean he was dead on SERIOUS--- Needless to say, he was a tad bit discouraged when he didn't but don't you worry, I fibbed a little and convinced him that it was only at night, when Ian's gone to bed, that Frosty comes to life.  He totally bought it...

 The following morning we woke up and found this:

Shortly after the snowfall, things warmed up a little and by the evening it began to rain... Frosty began to melt and by the following morning, he'd tumbled off of his base. I was sure Ian would REALLY be upset to see his friend Frosty in this condition but instead, rather poignantly, he said

"I think Frosty probably started dancing cRaZy all night and that's why he fall over..."

Hmmm....

Maybe so Ian.

His smile does look a little bigger than it did the day before.

Like I said before, it didn't snow much in December (prior to Christmas Day) but with what little snow we did receive Spencer helped the boys build a snow fort....  It was their pride and joy!

The Tuesday before Christmas we took the boys to visit Santa Claus... we were first in line, ahead of at least 2 possibly 300 little kids all anxious to visit with Santa... we were only the first ones in line because we arrived a little more than an hour before Santa arrived...

We waited and waited ever so patiently.

The boys really held it together quite nicely until the last 2 minutes or so... By that time it was past dinner time, they were starving AND they'd missed their afternoon naps.

They were beginning to unravel.

I had a bag of Kix cereal in my diaper bag I pulled out to let Bentley snack on, somehow Cohen got his sticky little hands on it without my knowing it...

FINALLY one of Santa's helpers announced that Santa had arrived and he was ready to meet and greet the kiddos... Hallelujah! 

Noah happily skipped up to greet Santa, while Ian approached him cautiously... Spencer held Bentley and as I went to nudge Cohen  Santa's way, (he was standing about 10 feet away from Santa, frozen with fear),  Cohen FLIPPED OUT and threw the bag of Kix into the air; before I could even think to respond, Cohen had jetted out the door, gone who knows where, for he had left me standing in his mess, alone, at the head of the line, Kix in my hair, on my coat and all over the floor surrounding me! I mean all over!  It looked like a land mine of Kix exploded in the room!!!  I was mortified!  We were the first in line and of course we had to leave the place a complete disaster! Before I could get down on my hands and knees to scoop up the cereal all the little kids surrounding us stomped them to bits and pieces.  The old lady who was working at the head of the line gave me one nasty look as if to say "Get your hellions out of here, we don't want your kind of trouble"... needless to say, after the photographer snapped the picture, we scooped up our gang and hurried out of there.

Note to self: Don't let Cohen get his sticky little hands on Bentley's bag of cereal.

What would Christmas be without all of the parties leading up to it???  We threw one of our own at the house and invited 6 of the boys friends over.

The kids frosted and decorated Christmas trees... This was my sister Tricia's idea.  You use sugar cones for the Christmas tree and color vanilla frosting green.  Once the kids were finished frosting their Christmas trees  they decorated them with small candies--- Skittles, string licorice, Smarties, sprinkles, Red hots, M&M's, etc...

Here's a picture of Ian's Christmas tree... a bit of an overkill on the sprinkles, don't ya think???

They finger painted Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer visors with chocolate pudding... these were made from plain white paper plates cut in half, some yarn, a red pom pom for the nose, googly eyes and the kids traced and cut their hands onto brown construction paper and later glued them onto the visors to simulate antlers.

They played Toss the Ring on the Elf's Hat...  I used the cheapo dollar store paper party hats topped with sparkly pom poms and a bag of plastic gold and silver bracelets.
Note: All of the kids needed A LOT of practice with this one... we actually had more rings flying in the air hitting eyes, ears, noses and A LOT kept landing in our Christmas tree! Very few rings actually landed on the elf hats.

The kids built snowmen... but these snowmen were NOT your ordinary  snowmen... these snowmen were LIVE  snowmen!  We wrapped some of the kids in white crepe paper, dressed them in mittens, scarves and beanies, then fitted them with sunglasses and orange construction paper carrot noses....  the kids LOVED making these  snowmen, if only we had the time to let all of them be a  snowman...  B.E.S.T. IDEA E.V.E.R.--- the idea came to me that morning while I was in the shower... I LOVE last minute ideas that end up being a success!

And the last activity for the evening was Pin the Nose on Rudolph...  Really, do I even NEED to explain how we played this game?!  I think not!

The morning of Christmas Eve I met up with some of my old mission companions... Both Lacy and Ruth were in town for the holidays so we decided to get together for breakfast at Mimi's Cafe. It was nice to chat and see how well they've all been doing; however, I'm not going to lie, my head was ALREADY racing that morning, thinking ahead about all of the last minute things I needed to do before Christmas the following morning and did I mention I was sick?... yeah. I'd been sick with either a major cold or sinus infection and since I was pregnant, my doctor refused to prescribe me any medicine because it could harm the baby, so he told me I'd have to kick the cold the old way, wait it out, get lots of rest and drink lots of liquids... Easier said than done... didn't he realize NO ONE rests during the month of December?! Anyhow, 'nough said, my ears were ringing, my head was spinning, my temp was rising and I was barely understandable because I was talking out of my nose... I'm SURE I looked a mess!

We spent Christmas Eve with Spencer's entire family over at his parents house... we ate, the kids played games, we opened gifts, we sang and attempted to recreate the story of Jesus' birth... Spencer's brother Aaron actually brought with him some real myrrh, or maybe it was frankincense, (I can't remember, my brain is like mush when I'm pregnant), that he dabbed onto each of the kids--- stinkiest stuff I've EVER smelled before in my life!

Ian and Spencer were wise men. 

Bentley was supposed to role play baby Jesus

but he wasn't feeling it when it came time to perform...

And last but not least, let us not forget the annual Campbell Family Christmas portrait that Linda (my dear mother in law) insisted we have taken so that she could use it on her Christmas cards she was mailing out to friends and family (obviously she was mailing them a little late of course seeing as how Christmas was only just a few hours away)...

Pretty classy don't ya think???

Our two oldest, Noah and Ian, were fighting with each other; Spencer was beginning to get upset with them; Maddie (our niece) just has the worst expression ever on her face; Ike (our little nephew laying on Aaron's lap) looks as though he was half asleep; Laura (my sister in law in the green) evidently is looking down at something on her arm and my other sister in law Megan is looking off to her right, not even in the direction of the camera....  Can you believe this was T.H.E. B.E.S.T. family photo of the crop?!  Seriously, out of like a hundred of the ones we took that night, this was T.H.E. B.E.S.T....  but do you want to know what I appreciate the most about this picture??? Oh, it would have to be those 3 ugly twin mattresses stacked up in the corner right next to Spencer!!! It looks so white trash, not that we are white trash... I know our family has a bit more class than what is exhibited here... perhaps next year we ought to just hire a REAL professional photographer and have our family portrait taken outside, with the mountains and nature surrounding us, just like every other family in Utah does.  Just sayin'.