Are we noticing a trend here?

This year has been an odd one for our end of the year holidays. My parents have been out here for Halloween the last four years until this year then we've always been with family for Thanksgiving and Christmas and this year it was just us.

We knew for awhile that we wouldn't be going up to Idaho Falls for Christmas with Derek's family remodeling and Derek conducting ( and as it turned out speaking ) on Christmas day. We thought for awhile they might come to us but with Christmas being on a Sunday and Derek's mom working in retail we figured the chances were slim to none that they'd be able to join us and they weren't. I'd planned for this eventuallity by talking to as many cousins as I could about coming down to our house for a Christmas eve something. As it turned out we had plans for my cousins to come down for an old fashioned Streeter shabang on Saturday and a nice dinner with some of Derek's cousins on Friday.

Derek was off work on Thursday and we ran around finishing up shopping and other details then Thursday night the upset stomach Derek had had all week seemed to worsen. All of Friday he was in bed with the stomach flu. We called to cancel our plans. But that night we started our gingerbread house as Derek slept on the couch.


We did one last year and Hyrum remembered and wanted to do another. This may become a tradition


Last year I had little to nothing to do with the construction of the house itself and this year I was flying solo with two eager little boys pushing to put the candy on.


I think I did pretty well.

The next day Derek was feeling a lot better and headed off into the Christmas eve shopping madness to finish up HIS shopping. When he got back we decided to finish the gingerbread house. This time Dad helped.



It should probably be noted just exactly how much my boys LOVED the gingerbread house frosting


( I should probably mention that this was after we were done with the gingerbread house- why fight it)

Except when it was on Noah's finger. He really hates his hands being dirty


But Hyrum took care of that


He's such a good big brother.

Then we made the Santa cookies that Hyrum remembered making with Mema from last year. Noah helped too this year.


We got a box from my sister that day and in it with the presents were boots and coats that she didn't send with the 4T clothes. Hyrum was SOOOO excited. One pair of boots had mud on them from the previous owners and Hyrum said they were army boots thinking that the mud was camouflage. Because Hyrum was putting on boots and coats of course Noah had to as well. And then since they were putting on boots, he wanted to take a walk, in the wagon and since we had a few more neighbor gifts to deliver we went for a walk around the neighborhood to deliver them. ( Is this sounding a little like 'If you give a mouse a cookie'?)

When we got back from all of our running we decided to watch The Polar Express since we hadn't watched it yet and Hyrum kept saying he wanted to watch it on Christmas eve. But when we asked him he said he wanted to watch 'Mr Kruger's Christmas' instead. So that's what we did and after we retold the Christmas story from the Bible using the Little People to act it out.


While Derek was reading we noticed when he paused Hyrum would continue, quoting the Bible word for word. We were shocked until we realized that he has watched 'Charlie Brown Christmas' as many times as he could get away with just about every day of the week and along the way was memorizing the Christmas story that Linus recounts from the Bible. Thank you Mr Schultz!

Then we put the baby Jesus in the manger. Hyrum was SOOO excited to do this. He'd been waiting for so long and was entirely committed to making sure that Jesus had a nice soft bed to lay in. We expanded it this year to include any nice thing you do for anyone without them asking you to do it. So if he picked up his wrapper without me asking him to do it he put a straw in the manger which I was totally cool with because otherwise I'd be doing it so really, it was for me.


Then we persuaded Hyrum to watch the Polar Express. Noah was chomping at the bit to see the choo choo movie but Hyrum gets really nervous and upset while watching it. He managed without too much drama.

We also let the boys open one present of our choosing which were new Christmas jammies.



Cute boys.

Then we laid out the cookies and milk and wrote Santa a letter and the boys went to bed. Rather quickly I might add which kind of surprised us.

I have to mention something about the gingerbread house. As soon as we got it done Hyrum began worrying about a visit from "Ms Gretel". He even wanted me to put him to bed because Dad would know what to say to her in German. It even got to the point that he would leave extra candy beside the gingerbread house for her to eat, so that she wouldn't eat the house. The imagination of a 4 year old. This may become a new tradition too.

The next morning we let the boys sleep as long as they possibly would and Hyrum came in around 8. We tried to keep them in our bed as long as we could too. But we had to get into the shower to get ready for church. Then we showed Hyrum what Santa left in his room. A new Sunday outfit complete with sweater vest and tie. Noah got to wear Hyrum's other red tie. Hyrum was actually pretty excited about the new outfit.


Note to self: when Christmas is on Sunday make sure to tell Santa to WRAP everything in the stockings and under the tree.

It was a novelty for Dad to be home before church.


After church, where the boys were remarkably well behaved for what was waiting for them at home, we headed home and didn't bother to change as most people did. We just dug right in!



Stockings first because they were easy access and had already been breached. Noah got some 'Cars' cars. He was really excited.


After the stockings were complete we started in on Santa gifts and gifts from each other. For some reason whenever they'd open gifts they never faced me so I could never get any good face reactions. They both tore into gifts this year.

(of course most of the excitement was over once I got the camera out)

Until Noah opened this...and then he was done


This is all he wanted to play with for a long time.

After we opened the first wave of gifts we had our Christmas brunch.


Everyone bravely ate it despite the lingering affects of stomach bug to no ill affects.

The rest of the day was a mix of playing with toys skyping with family and opening more gifts.



We ended with Derek and I watching "It's a Wonderful Life" Something we've tried to do every Christmas ( or at least on OUR Christmas) since the year before we got married and I introduced it to Derek who'd never seen it. It was a good Christmas


Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.





This entry was posted on Thursday, January 05, 2012 and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 comments:

    Kyle and Amy Brinkerhoff said...

    I love all the pictures. The girls will be excited to come play with them and their new toys when we come to your house again.

  1. ... on January 17, 2012 at 4:03 PM  
  2. Jenn J. said...

    Love it all! Looks like you had a great Christmas. Sometimes it's nice to just celebrate with your own little family at home. The gingerbread house turned out fabulous! I love the Hansel story and Derek talking to her in German. Hysterical. That's one smart boy. I'm glad you had a Merry Christmas despite the stomach bug. :)

  3. ... on January 17, 2012 at 8:04 PM