Christmas 2014

Because so many of us were either recovering from illness or still in the throes, our Christmas Eve was a pretty low key affair.  To keep up appearances, and because the boys begged us, we went over to the high school gym to play some ball.  We tried our darnedest, but Dash and Colt had to keep sitting down to rest between shots and Sis just sat on the bleachers and cried.  Sport enjoyed himself, spending his time jumping from the top of the folded up bleachers, but after an hour we gave up and went home to take naps.  Later, we opened our annual Family Game gift and spent some time playing a new version of Sorry and drinking hot chocolate.

Colt reacting to a "sorry" bump.

 Christmas Eve evening we ate our traditional pizza by candlelight and tracked Santa on the Internet.  

Dinner!

 Sick or no, we still had to put out cookies for Santa and if the Big Guy is getting cookies, so are we!

Sis and her Christmas Eve cookie.

Delicious!

Sport saved us the trouble of frosting a cookie and ate his straight out of the can.

Dash (still chilling with fever) anxiously awaiting bed time.  (A 2014 first and last)

Daddy and Sis tracking Santa.

Watching the Polar Express on Christmas Eve.

Lit up like a Christmas tree

Christmas morning.  Sissy was still making her way down the hall.  Morning comes early for a girl with a fever.

The unwrapping.

The stocking all strung on the floor with great care.

Sissy really didn't feel good, but when she opened her doll she was content to sit on the ground and snuggle her baby.

Colt opening the ants for the ant farm from Santa.

Dash with his BYU blanket from Grandma.  He also got tickets to a Jazz vs. Bucks game from Santa.  Happy boy!

In the middle of opening gifts, we paused to add the ants to Colt's ant farm.  It was a pretty intense process that involved herding escaped ants back into the container and screaming (from me and Sis).

Sport loves projects and making things.  He got an art kit from us and a tool set from Santa. Oh and the one thing he asked for from Santa was tucked in his stocking, swim goggles that aren't pink.

The boys all gave Brandan coupon books.  These can be redeemed for some of the following: a snowball fight, one perfect family scripture study, one cleared dinner plate, a game of catch, a back rub, and a clean classroom.

One afternoon, the boys spent hours at Brandan's classroom making me these posters for Christmas.  The green one is a countdown calendar until the baby's due date and the red one is full of boxes for me to record my daily exercise.  So cute!

Sport and his new gloves from Aunt Cam.

 After we had exhausted our presents and eaten our new cereal, we lounged around a bit and continued our recuperation.  Everyone was finally starting to turn the corner (well, Sis was still pretty yucky).   Then Christmas afternoon, Sport threw his blanket over himself and started shivering and dozing on his bedroom floor.  The last to fall!

Sis napping off her fever.

Dash creating an elaborate marble maze with his new set on Christmas Day.

Despite Sport's sickness (he shook it off faster than the rest of us), we loaded up on the 26th and went to Idaho to enjoy family for a couple days before Brandan had to get back to practice the following Monday.  We had a great time and by the time we returned home we were all healthy and ready to finish up our Christmas vacation in style, which included the boys attending bball practice with Brandan and lots of naps for me!

Favorite Christmas Moments:

On Christmas morning, Dash and Colt were lounging on the couch casually shooting their new nerf gun bullets at Brandan and I who were standing at the kitchen table trying to shove 500 puzzle pieces together.  After exercising all my holiday patience (already stretched thin by the above mentioned puzzle), I suggested the boys pick a different target.  Dash immediately complied, but I overheard him suggest to Colt that they pick a target close to us so that when they miss the stray bullets still hit us.

While visiting the Madsens, Gpa M, Brandan, Colt and I all headed downstairs together.  The basement was strewn with blankets and pillows from a game the grandkids had played the night before.  Colt casually asked Grandpa what he liked to do in the basement.  In reference to the mess, Grandpa jokingly replied that he just liked to come down there and build forts.  Immediately Colt quipped, "Next time you build a fort, tell one of us [grandkids].  We love forts!"

Sport was remarkably healthy while the rest of us felt ill.  I didn't think much of it at the time, but looking back its pretty funny to remember him dancing around the house, doing hand stands, singing about Frosty and Rudolph and eating all the Christmas goodies we were given without any competition.  He had a great Christmas.

Christmas morning, Sissy's sick little eyes almost broke my heart, but nothing was sweeter than her dragging her doll and its packaging over to me and asking with a croaky little voice for me to get out her baby so she could hold it.