Christmas Sunday

I didn't do a Christmas card this year - for lots of reasons.  But if I did it would have been this.

 This is right before church on the 23rd.  Brian Weister came over to take these pictures.  I love them. I love my family.  I love my neighbors and friends - this picture represents that.  The girls dresses were borrowed early Sunday morning from 2 of our neighbors because the girls wanted Christmas dresses.  Brian came over to take a picture for us - I just thought he would use my camera and say "smile".  He took about 15 minutes setting up the house and getting the right lighting and lens.   And then their's my husband and boys who would rather do about ANYTHING else than take a family picture.

Our best present under the tree

It's cheesy but true - Dane will be what we remember about this Christmas.  He has been the light of our lives these last 7 weeks.  He was all our family really needed.   I tried to get a good photo representing this idea but he was pretty grumpy.  These were the best.

Christmas Day

Christmas morning and day was a lot of fun.  The kids were excited to see what was in all those presents!

Jason was our picture taker.

Everyone was excited to see what was in Dane's stocking

Megan got an American Girl Doll Jeep (target brand), a ballet outfit with shoes (for grandma's gift - ballet lessons), a panda shirt, a sewing kit, and a cute beenie,

Noah got a star wars blanket, legos, a detective outfit, Drama classes, and an MP3 player

Brock got a trick scooter, a Bronco's football, a cordless mouse, dart wars gift card, and indoor soccer league.

Madison got a leotard to go with the gymnastics classes, mini cupcake tin with paper liners, a sewing kit, and her annual gift - a squishy ball.

Dane got a few new toys and  Bronco jammies.

The girls made Jason and I some jewelry - these bracelets and a heart necklace where we each got one half.  From the ward I got an insta pot and Jason got an AMC gift card.  For the family we got the old-school NES and super-NES Nintendo.  We spent most of Christmas day destroying our kids in our favorite games!

Our cute Christmas kids

Then I made us some brunch.

It is AMAZING how I was still awesome!  How does my brain remember instantly where all the tricks and secrets are and my fingers just instantly knew what to do even before my brain did.  So weird.

We went to dinner at the Neyenhuis'.  It was wonderful.  We were very blessed this Christmas by the kindness of others.

Christmas Eve

On Christmas eve-eve we spent the evening driving around looking at lights.  This is one of my favorite holiday traditions started by my aunt Pat.  This was my favorite house.  

On Christmas eve day we made sugar cookies and frosted them later that night.




The boys played a 4 hour game of monopoly.  On the tv: that is baby Brock!  I decided for winter break I wanted to watch ALL of our home movies in order.  It was so fun!  We just kind of had them playing in the back ground.  I had several epiphanies while watching that I might share later.

We made our usual sea food dinner.  This year we had 2 kinds of shrimp and lobster tails.

As all of you know we have had a rough year and a half of unemployment.  We have been blessed over the last year and a half from our savings and food storage that we have always felt "fine" - but that was quickly running out.  As mentioned in a previous post Jason got a contract job at the beginning of November - but we had a lot of upcoming expenses and catching up to do and replacing broken things.  Because of all of this we had told our children Christmas would be small this year, they responded, "like last year?" - oh yea - we did this last year too, "um... smaller than last year" we responded.  Santa could bring them all one small present.  That would be it.  No stockings, no presents from cousins (we didn't go in on the drawing) and grandma Hanna was giving them activities for their present (which they all wanted and chose (those are the activities all listed in the previous post)).  They were gracious and fine and didn't seem too upset at the thought of having 4 presents under the tree.  Throughout the month of December the kids decided to make each other presents.  This wasn't brought on by Jason or me.  I think Megan started it and they all just followed suit.  They were very thoughtful and they took a lot of time and effort into making these presents.  Brock doesn't like making things - so he did jobs and earned money to buy a few things.  Each present was really very thoughtful about that persons personality.  It was very sweet.

Then on Christmas eve we got a knock at the door.  It was a few families form our ward all holding a bunch of presents and singing carols.  Several families had gotten together to buy our family Christmas!  It was overwhelming.  The kids didn't know what to say.  After putting all the presents under the tree this is how it looked.

 My brothers and sisters also sent presents for each of the kids.   The kids were so grateful and humble about the whole thing.  They kept saying things like, "Why us?" or "Our ward loves us" and "and you said it was going to be a small Christmas?!"  We truly had a Christmas miracle and the kids went to bed Christmas Eve night excited to see what the "real Santa" in their lives brought them.  This is the true meaning or Christmas - sacrifice, love, service, giving, selflessness and I am grateful my kids got to see this in action.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Around the house

Life around our house has been moving at a snails pace for the last 6 weeks.  This is intentional.  I simplified everything and then let everything else go.  I wanted all of us to have wonderful, peaceful memories of the first few months of bringing this little baby into our home.  Boy has it worked.  We all just love snuggling him, talking to him, and just being a little calmer and a little more gentle.  I know it can't last forever - but this winter has been simply blissful.

These pictures are all from the first day we brought him home from the hospital to the first week of January.  This is my first baby with having  smart phone - turns out you can take way too many pictures.  With my other babies if they were being cute I would have to go get the camera - now I always have my phone (I have a great nursing app).  So every precious moment I try to capture.  So I just put them all here.

There are always flowers waiting for me when I get home from the hospital.  Usually the flowers mean something (12 roses for the 12 hours I was in labor with Brock, etc).  Can you figure out this ones:

2 girls and 3 boys.  Dane is the yellow rose (the baby)

Before all the pictures of Dane I wanted to share a pictures I took.  This is what our December evenings looked like.  I sat in the chair holding or nursing Dane while the rest of the family sat on the couch or cuddled under blankets reading books. (The boys are on the other couch)

I won't add captions to all the pictures - just know they all make my heart melt!

but... I mean...come on!

From the first day in the hospital his natural hand position was to hold his binkey in - it is pretty awesome!

First Bath.  He really likes his bath.

Dane and I slept a lot - Jason took pictures I guess

Jason and Dane slept some also

I made the conscious choice to treat Dane like my first baby all over again.  I don't care how much I don't get done, how "spoiled" he gets, or what bad habits he forms - I am spending my days and evenings holding and cuddling my baby.  Around 3 months I will start caring about the bad habits - but for now I am just in heaven every single day.  When I look down on him, sleeping on my chest I just feel so happy and so at peace.  I want to capture this feeling - so I try to take a picture.  Nothing can really capture the feeling of your baby sleeping on you - but I keep trying.

And then there is this man...

He makes all of this possible.  He carries the weight and burden of all of us everyday.  He goes to work, goes to school (his MBA), does his homework, stops at the store for me, wrestles with the kids, teaches amazing Sunday School lessons, makes sure to spend time with Dane everyday, does the dishes, puts the house to bed, fixes everything that breaks, makes sure we read scriptures and have Family Home Evening, ensures all the left overs gets eaten, pays the bills, gets up in the morning with the kids and gets them ready for school so I can sleep, and much much more.  It would be so easy to ask me to go back to work or to work from home - but he has never.  I am so so grateful that I get to spend my days, pretty worry free, with my little baby, while Jason supports us all.  I love him deeply for his hard work, sacrifice and love.

While our days and evenings (post 8 pm) are slow and quiet - there is nothing slow and quiet between 4 and 8!  The kids have quiet a few activities going on right now: Soccer, dance, gymnastics, drama class, chess club, cub scouts, young mens, activity days, orchestra, battle of the books, and choir.  Plus there is dinner, homework, and friends sprinkled in there.  Luckily Dane really likes his wrap and car seat! 

And that, my friends, is Danes first month of life.  I really need to slow down on the amount of pictures I take.