Christmas and the New Year

Once again I am late posting, but the last several weeks have been so busy, it's seems I've barely had time to breathe, much less get online. I finally found a spare minute and am taking full advantage of it. For Christmas this year, we went over to Montana to see my family and had a wonderful time spending the entire week with them. They weren't expecting us until the Monday night before Christmas, but our plans changed and and we were able to arrive a day early and surprise them. I wish I could have taken a picture of mom's face when Jackson walked downstairs and said hi. She was so shocked and so flustered and excited it caught up with us as soon as we turned the car off and went inside. It rained like that all night and by the next morning, it was dangerous even to walk on the grass. It was a very good thing we arrived a day early. We went down to Billings on Tuesday night and the road was a solid sheet of ice the entire way there as well. Someone's advice to my dad before we left for Billings was only go as fast as you want to hit the ditch. What a comforting thought. The roads stayed like that until Christmas morning adn then we finally saw the sun. Anyways, we had a wonderful day in Billings, though it was a little rushed, and we were even able to squeeze in a much needed temple session. My sisters were kind enough to watch the boys for us all day as we ran around going to the Dentist(my uncle Cody, who fixed a very sensitive filling for me and to whom I am extremely grateful to), the temple and Walmart for some last minute Christmas shopping. I spent Christmas Eve (the entire day and part of the early early hours of Christmas morning) wrapping all the presents I hadn't had time to wrap before we left and trying to finish the ones that weren't done yet(and still aren't done yet because the store ran out of the yarn I need). We played games and ate food and had a great time. Christmas morning was very relaxed and we didn't open any presents until around noon.

The boys sleeping in. They both decided they needed Christmas morning snuggles with Mommy and Daddy and fell back to sleep together. Good thing Mom and Dad gave us a king size bed!

We did things a little different this year and drew names for who stuffed whose stocking to else the finacial burden on Santa. We had a $7.50 price limit per stocking, but I think most of us went a little overboard and Santa still contributed more than he needed to, but who is complaining :) Mom's stuffer from me was promtly stolen by my little sister Racheal and was broken to bits by the end of the day.

Doesn't she look beautiful?

Her present to me was the best ever and I absolutly love it and can't wait to start sewing on it. I've tested it out, but so far I haven't really done anything with it just because I haven't had the time to yet. I'm so excited though!! Love you Mom!!

Please ignore my hideousness. At least I was clean :)

Jeff got me a digital picture frame!! I love that man :) He also got me a handheld electronic Sudoku game because I like to play but it drives me nuts because I'm terrible at it.

To Jackson and Owen from Mommy and Daddy. They fight over this thing constantly.

Isn't Liz adorable?!

Right before we opened our stockings. Jeff must have been either blinking or sneezing.

Isn't my dad a handsome man?

This is Nathan, can you tell he's a teenager? He was like this the entire week. What a buttmunch.

Racheal, the stocking stuffer thief. Cute though, isnt she?

Unfortunatly I don't have any great pictures of my beautiful older sister Jennifer.

Owen was very sleepy(even though he slept in) and went down for a nap right before we started to open presents, so I don't have any pictures of him playing with his new things.

Here is our tree. The Hospital(were Jeff works) was getting rid of a bunch of things and this was one of them, so we now have a free, though worth $80, 7ft tall artificial tree including some tacky ornaments the boys love. Jackson decorated the bottom half of the tree and I did the top half. Sadly you can't actually see any of my ornaments because it took me a couple days to get around to putting them on. We'll put this tree up when we go to Montana for Christmas and we'll cut our own when we are home.

Right before we left Wenatchee got dumped on, so Jackson and I went out and made good use of the coat, snowpants, boots, gloves and hat he got last year.

This snow is all from just one night and he had a blast!

As for the New Year, I didn't make any resolutions, but I've got some ongoing goals. Once again I've started an excersise program, this one from The Biggest Loser. I've got a weight loss yoga DVD and a Bootcamp DVD with Bob as my 'personal trainer' and they both are kicking my butt. It's a 6 week program, but I think I'm going to drag it out a little longer. For those of you who know me well, you know I am not a morning preson at all and will stay in bed until I absolutly have to get up. Well, starting this week, I've changed that habit and am now getting up at 7am so I can do my workout. The DVD's are supposed to work together, but with 2 little boys who like to interrupt me often, I'm only able to do one a day which is the reason for the 7am alarm clock wakeup call. Ugh. It's working though. The boys wake up anywhere between 7:30 and 8 and because I'm already awake(completely awake and usually dripping in sweat), they don't have to wait as long for me to get them some breakfast. By then I'm usually either all the way done or most of the way done and Jeff hasn't left for work yet so he'll help me out a bit until he has to leave. My body is sore and aching, but like I used to say in High School all the time, no pain no gain. My brother in law(that's you Greg) has the P90X program and has offered to burn me a copy so that when I'm done with my 6 week Biggest Loser program I can do that one and hopefully I'll finally be able to reach my weight loss goal. For those of you who haven't heard of P90X, it's an intense 90 day program designed to slim you down and tone you up in 90 days. I've got some friends doing it and the results are incredible. Google it to see for youself. Hopefully I'll be able to get a before picture up for you all to gag at :). Wish me luck!