...And then Christmas Day!!

Digging out......Lauren, Lindsey, and Adam behind one of the snowbanks!

What it looked like about half-way through the storm.  We could finally see across the street at this point.

Looking at our Christmas stash!

From Santa, Isaac got a Clone Trooper mask...

Syd got Tinkerbell Polly Pockets....

Noah got a 4-wheeler....

Daddy got PEZ and Noah was having fun with the flashlight! (the flash on my camera makes it look lighter than it really was in the livingroom)

Really excited about her Tinkerbell Polly Pockets!

Yes, Santa came and went, even in this huge blizzard!!

...So then came Christmas Day!!!  After hearing the wind howling all night, at about 6:30 am, the power goes out!!  So I'm laying there wondering why the heck the power is out.  So, I decided to get up and go look out the window.  Much to my surprise, this howling wind that I had been hearing all night was an actual and I mean TRUE BLIZZARD!!!  You couldn't even see across the street at this point, it was so bad!!  So, I knew then that had to be the reason for the power outage.  So, I lit some candles, and Chris and I went on a quest in the dark to find our flashlights.  We finally found them, and decided it was kind of fun having the power out on Christmas Morning, so we decided to wake the kids about 7:30 and let them join in on the fun.  So we gave them each a flashlight and we went to the livingroom to see what Santa had brought.  I must admit it was really cute seeing the kids come walking into the livingroom with their little flashlights and still being so incredibly excited despite the power being out.   We had no heat, no Christmas lights on, and no music, but we didn't care.  We eventually hooked my iPod up to a battery powered speaker, so we did get some music going, but it was just fun being in the dark, with the kids, on Christmas morning!  So, after the kids played with their Santa stuff, Chris went outside to boil some water on our camp stove for hot drinks since we were freezing our butts off due to no heat, and then attempted to shovel the driveway so his family could hopefully find their way through this nasty (I say awesome) Christmas blizzard to join us for presents and breakfast.  When he came in, he had shoveled over a foot of snow, mostly from snow drifting into our driveway.  At that point, we had only had a few  inches of snow actually fall, but the wind had made it much worse.  So, Chris' family finally arrives and we get breakfast going.  Luckily we didn't have to cook anything because the power was STILL out.  This was about 9:00 am and we could now see across the street some, but the blowing and falling snow was still pretty bad. At this point the power had been out for about 2 1/2 hours, and boy was the house really getting COLD at this point.  We were all bundling up in blankets and jackets, and drinking our hot drinks to stay warm.  FINALLY, at about 10 am, our power came back on and we got to opening presents.  From this point on, we had a really good time with everybody.  We got some pretty cool stuff.  Then after we finished with that, we looked out the window, and I'm not kidding or exaggerating at all when I say, we had about another foot of snow in our driveway!!  Chris' parent's cars were buried in snow!!  So, they stayed and hung out at our house until late afternoon when the snow and wind finally stopped enough that we could dig their cars out.  It was kind of fun going out and playing in the deep snow!!  Then Christmas night, we were supposed to go have dinner at my parent's house, but since there was a part 2 storm moving in, and I was still trying to recover from this deathly ill experience I had on Christmas Eve, we decided to stay home for the rest of the day and just let the kids have fun playing with their new stuff.  So the day after Christmas, we got up to find that after the 2nd part of this monsterous storm had moved through, we now had a total of about 18 - 20 inches of snow!!  WHAT A STORM!!!  Usually when a storm comes through, we only get an inch or so, so this storm was pretty fun for us!! So we dug out, I did a little post Christmas shopping, and then we went and spent the evening up at my parent's house and had our Christmas with them.  So like I said on our Christmas Eve blog, this will go down in the books as another pretty memorable Christmas for us.  Hope you all had a great Christmas and have a Happy New Year!!!  Don't get drunk!!

Christmas Eve...

Helping each other take Santa's cookies to the livingroom.  (Of course it's a fight every year on who gets to carry the cookies, so I have them carry it together)

Ike and Syd decorating their cookies for Santa, and in their Christmas PJ's!

Noah enjoying his new Christmas PJ's, and his Christmas cookie!

Well, we hope everybody had a great Christmas.  We had a rather interesting Christmas that I think will have to go down as one of the more memorable Christmases we've had.  We started Christmas Eve morning off with me waking up around 5am feeling REALLY ILL!!  After several hours of complete misery and not being able to keep anything down, Chris was gracious enough to take me to the emergency room for some much needed relief.  After a few hours,  3 liters of saline (since I was very dehydrated), some anti-nausea, and anti-diarrheal stuff injected into my IV, I was feeling much better and was able to go home, but not without the side effect of being completely stoned for the rest of the day.  Honestly, I don't remember much more of Christmas Eve day since I was incredibly drugged up.  We were supposed to have dinner with Chris' family that night, so Chris packed up the kids and went over for Christmas Eve dinner, while I stayed home and tried to sleep the drugs off.  Luckily I was a little more alert when they came home and was able to get up and help the kids get ready for santa to come.  It's a tradition for them to put on their Christmas PJ's and decorate cookies for Santa, so, that's what we did.  Then they went to bed and Chris and I "waited for Santa to come"!!  Finally about 10:30 or so, Santa finally made his appearance and we were able to get set up and get ourselves to bed.  Then about 1:30, I was asleep, but kind of in that twilight zone (since I was still drugged), when all of the sudden, I saw visions of a kid in our doorway trying to wake us up to show us what santa had brought.  When I came around from my twilight zone, there was Isaac standing in our doorway showing us his Clone Trooper Mask that Santa had brought him.  After yelling at him and sending him back to bed and threatening him that Santa would take his toys away if he didn't stay in bed, he was good for the rest of the night.  Now, during all of this, the wind was howling really loudly and hard, so I kept waking up throughout the night.  This will take you to part two of our blog, which is the next post.........

Let it snow! Let it snow!! Let it SNOW!!!

Wow!!  What a crazy and stormy week!!  Why is it that December is always so chaotic??  These pictures were taken a week ago when we got the first snow storm, and this was Noah's first time playing in the snow!!  He was around for the snow last year, but too young to care.  This year, he thinks the snow is pretty great.  In fact, a couple of times he has run out into the snow without any coat or boots!!  Of course it is short lived since he gets COLD really fast!!  I don't know about anybody else, but I think I'm getting the skiing bug......anyone care to join???  I would give anything to go skiing right now!  Anywhoo, hope everybody has a great Christmas, and we'll post more probably after the whole big Christmas thing happens.  It's so fun to see the kids get so excited.  They are counting the days down very carefully and consistently.  It's pretty cute.  Today Sydney was re-wrapping Isaac's gifts from school, and putting them under the tree for him to open again and again.  It was pretty hillarious!!  Not that she's the least bit anxious for Christmas to come!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Isaac helping his dad shovel the snow!

Noah checking out the driveway conditions to see if it's safe to drive. :)

Kids were wishing they had a hill to sleigh ride on.  That's one thing I really miss about Bountiful!!  Always having a place in the backyard to go sleigh riding or cross country skiing!!  Oh the good old days!

The trouble makers....uh,....I mean the brothers, Isaac & Noah

Going for a sleigh ride down the driveway, since we don't have any hills in our yard!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

CRAZY WEEK!! (Caution...Long winded blog!!!)

WOW!!!  This last week was really crazy for us!!  We started the week out by that nasty stomach bug knocking me down on Monday.  Yes, it's still in the house, and it's knocked 4 out of the 5 of us down now in the last month!!  It drives me crazy that it's so spread out between victims!!  You'd think we'd be done by now, but unfortunately it's the gift that keeps on giving, only this is one gift I wish would quit giving!!  Here we are 2 weeks away from Christmas, and we're still randomly getting sick.  We have been able to get out some though.  Tuesday we took Noah up to Primary Children's for his tests.  I was still sick, but feeling well enough to go and be with him.  They did an upper EGD, and a colonoscopy and everything went well with him.  There was good news and bad news.  The good news is they didn't find anything wrong with him!!!  HOOORRRAAAYYY!!  No signs of anything serious!!! :) The bad news is, we still don't know what's causing his diarrhea and rash!!!  They are assuming at this point that he has chronic unspecified diarrhea in toddlers that hopefully he will just eventually outgrow (most likely before the age of 5..hopefully sooner for his sake).  So, if this is it, hopefully it will end soon!!  I don't know how much more I can take of this disgusting crap, and seeing him miserable with these horrible rashes!!  So, that is where we stand on that.  Other things this week...Wednesday, Isaac went on a field trip to the Festival of Trees, and then to see Santa at South Town Mall.  We got a pretty funny picture of them with Santa, which will probably be sent out in our Christmas card.  I will warn you now, it's not the best picture of my kids, but it was pretty funny, so be on the watch for that.  Then Isaac's teacher gave me some last minute news that Isaac had won a Star Student award at school, so we went racing to Isaac's school to see the awards ceremony after the field trip.  He was so excited for this.  He has been working so hard to win, so we were really excited for him.  They pick 2 students from each class every month, so it was a really big deal for him.  Thursday found us purchasing an early birthday gift for Noah, seeing as he figured out how to climb out of his crib and land on his head.  So, we found him a really cute bed!!  He has really enjoyed it, and unfortunately, so have Isaac and Sydney enjoyed it.  They won't leave his bed alone.  I must admit I was feeling a little depressed when I took the crib down that night.  I think reality really sunk in that my baby was no longer a baby.  He's even reached the point where he really would rather sit at the table rather than in his highchair, so I guess you could say I'm going through the blues!!  So, then on Friday, believe it or not, Chris and I went on a DATE!!!  Yes, we went into Salt Lake to redeem his $4 Jazz tickets.  We had a lot of fun!!  It was so nice to get out and be alone with my hubby!!  Thanks again Mom and Dad for watching the kids for us!!  Then Saturday brought more barfing (Isaac again), and having to miss our Christmas party.  Chris and Sydney did go, and Sydney was very excited that she got to see Santa again.  Then later that day, I got out and got some Christmas shopping done.  I tell ya....I HATE SHOPPING!!  So then came Sunday.  Sydney was supposed to give a talk in primary, but when I was getting her ready for church, she decided to barf in my bathroom sink while I was doing her hair, so here we go again....more barfing!!!  So, I put her back to bed and ran Isaac over to church long enough to give her talk for her.  I must say that was an interesting experience with Isaac.  He has never done a talk before, but he did pretty good.  So, this week....I'm really hoping will be a little less chaotic!!! 

GO JAZZ!!  They kicked some serious butt against the Toronto Raptors!!

Just before tip off, introducing the starting players!!

Chris and me at Gateway just before the game!!  BRRRRRRRR!!!  It was so cold!!!

ZZZZZZZZ!!  We were very shocked that he went right to sleep and never once came out of his room!!  Maybe the transition won't be as hard as we thought!!  In fact, he has slept REALLY well in his new bed.  It must be much more comfortable for him because we don't hear a sound out of him until morning anymore!!!  :)  GOTTA LOVE THAT!!

The kids LOVED Noah's new car bed.  

Syd on the carousel at South Town Mall

Isaac too!!

Isaac was actually jumping up and down when they called him up for his Star Student Award!!  It was pretty cute!

Us with Isaac after his award ceremony.

Isaac showing his prizes...they gave him a star pen, a free kids meal coupon for Wingers, and another one for Applebees, and an opportunity to sit at the Star Student table at lunch.  Oh was he ever excited!!!  Now, if we could just get everybody's stomachs back to normal, we could take him to redeem his free kid meals!!  

HAVE A GREAT WEEK EVERYBODY!!  Sorry this blog is so long winded!!