Christmas Day

 What a Christmas we had this year! Ellie was sick with pneumonia and on oxygen and we didn't leave the house all day, but I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas. Scott and I learned the hard way that four kiddos means four times the presents to be wrapped and four times the things to be assembled. It didn't help that as we were putting Mason and Brynn to bed at what was already a much later bedtime than we've had in years past we heard Santa's bells outside and Mason insisted that we all lay down immediately. When I sat up to leave after a bit Mason gave me a deadly look and mouthed "lay down" while pointing to my bed. So we laid there as a family until Mason was sound asleep. We dove in after our late start and it took us until 3am to have everything ready to go. We learned our lesson and next year we will make sure most of the work is done before Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning, the big kids woke up at a decent hour of 7am, but like a good girl, Ellie slept until after we had gone down and checked out what Santa brought. That was perfect timing because I was able to do all of Ellie's morning care while the kids checked out their stockings and ate breakfast and then we were able to go down as a family to open presents. We took our time opening presents and let the kids play with and enjoy the presents as they opened them. It was a happy and peaceful morning. We spent the rest of the day playing and enjoying a few visits from family members. 

Once again I just want to say thank you to all the people who made our Christmas tree overflow with presents and our hearts overflow with gratitude. This will be a Christmas I will never forget.

I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

Santa brought Mason Cragger's Command Ship as well as a Lego mat to help make picking up legos easier.

The finished product

Brynn got a baby doll with a crib.

 Miles got a new basketball hoop.

 Ellie got a refurbished saucer toy. We asked Zippy if he could take our saucer toy back to Santa's workshop and fix the broken caterpillar toy. He did and Santa brought it back to Ellie for Christmas!

 The most exciting part for me was giving my kids the quiet books I have been slaving away on for the last 4 months. They were a hit! Seeing them more excited about the quiet books than they were about the ipad I got was the best Christmas gift I could have asked for.

(Don't worry I will be doing an in depth post on these bad boys next week!)

 The customary Christmas present pile pictures.

 Scott and I were expecting nothing more than a few needs this Christmas, but were surprised by many wants as well. I felt like a little kid being spoiled rotten on Christmas morning. Have I mentioned how grateful I am to all the angels out there? 

You may remember I was hoping for a new chair for Ellie's room. Well, there was one more big purchase that was necessary before we could splurge on a new chair and that is a generator. You see, when you have a technologically dependent child, a power outage becomes your biggest nightmare. I have pretty much held my breath through every storm we've had just waiting for the power to go out and not be able to run Ellie's machines. We've been saving our pennies since we brought her home with her trach, but those things aren't cheap. With the outpouring of love we received along with a great sale we were finally able to purchase our generator and can now have peace of mind that we are prepared.

 

The rest of the day was spent building legos, applying make-up, sewing with Brynn's new little sewing machine (that's a good indication of how much time I've spent sewing the quiet books), Miles driving and dumping all of his new trucks, and much much more.

 

 

It was a very Merry Christmas indeed.

Christmas Traditions

 Like everything else in our life since Ellie was born, our Christmas season was super simplified this year. Only our favorite and most important traditions made the cut.

We started off the season by putting up the Christmas decorations. With Miles in the stage he's in and me not having the desire or energy to watch him like a hawk, I realized that any decoration I put out this year had a very high probability of being broken so we kept the decorations to a minimum. We only put up our smaller "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree this year and decorated it with our most special ornaments. That includes all 21 years worth of wooden ornaments my Grandpa Allred has made for us.

 My nice nativity stayed safely packed away and we replaced it with this much more kid friendly Little People nativity that Miles got for his birthday. I'm so glad he got this because he loved playing with it. Random, but cute story, one day Miles walked up to his nativity and said, "Prayer, Baby J (Jesus)" and knelt in front of it ready to pray. It was the sweetest thing ever.

 We jumped on the bandwagon of Elf of the Shelf this year. It was a HUGE hit with the kiddos. Our elf was named Zippy. We didn't get too crazy or creative with it, he was simply in a new location each day. Mason and Brynn were very worried that Miles was going to touch him and he would loose his magic so they told Zippy he had to make sure to always stay up high, so he did just that and it's a good thing, because Miles was in love with him and would find him first thing when he woke up every morning and yell "Zippy up high! Touch Zippy!".

 It was very convenient having Zippy around when the kiddos had something they wanted Santa to know. He even delivered their letters to Santa for us.

 My mom was kind enough to let the kids come over and experiencing dipping chocolates with her since I didn't dip any myself this year (my sweet Grandma dipped extras for me to give out). This was one of my favorite things to do when I was little so I'm glad they got to experience it.

 It was the 5th annual Grandma's sleepover. It's hard to believe that in just 5 years the clan has more than doubled and there are now 11 grandchildren. This tradition consists of all the grandchildren sleeping over at my parents house while all the parents go out to dinner together and have a child-free date night. This year the plan had to be revamped to accommodate Ellie. We took Ellie home with us and my brothers brought take out over for us all to enjoy together. It was different, but still fun. 

 L-R Mason (6), Ellie (7 months), Miles (2), Brynn (4), Andrew (3), Kendall (1), Rachel Faye (5), Cole (11 months), Kennedy (6), Chase (3), Cannon (8)

The party at Grandma's house remained the same. Dinner, hot tub, matching jammies, jumping on mattresses, a late bedtime and early wake up. What more could these cousins ask for? As always, it was a huge success.

We were invited to a brunch at my Aunt Marilyn's house with our cousins Allie and Gabe where a very special guest came to visit. This is a tradition that my Grandparents did every year while I was growing up and so it was fun to have my kids experience it.

 Of course me being the brain dead loser I am I never stopped to get pictures of my kids with Santa. In my defense I had Brynn and Miles both clinging to me in fear and Scott had his hands full with Ellie. Thankfully, my uncle Dave snapped some pictures for us.
Mason asked Santa for Cragger's Command Ship (a big Chima Lego set)

 Brynn was pretty nervous when Santa came. If you remember her and the big man don't have the greatest track record. When he pulled out her present and it was her turn to sit on his lap she resisted at first, but after I plopped her on his lap she kept her composure and even managed to tell him she wanted "a doll with stuff". I think this may have been a breakthrough for her.

 Sorry for the blurry picture, this was a picture of a video we took of Miles wailing and clinging for dear life to me. It might take him a couple more years to get there. He was able to mumble that he wanted a basketball hoop once he was safe in my arms.

 

Ellie was a gem and Santa was so sweet with her.

 

Santa brought a gift for everyone. Mason got an art kit, Brynn and Allie got My Little Ponies, Miles and Gabe got trucks, and Ellie got a darling little Tubie Friend as well as a mirror toy and caterpillar that have become her favorite toys. Thanks Jenkins family for including us in a fun tradition.

 One thing we have tried to do each Christmas is teach our children the importance of helping others. We have done this by participating in angel trees, sub for Santa, or giving to families we knew were going through a rough patch. This year our family learned this lesson in a way I never imagined we would when we were on the receiving end of so much generosity and Christ-like love. On multiple occasions we answered the door or got the mail to find some type of gift for us. Some people we have been able to thank for their kindness but many we haven't. So if you are one of the angels who brightened our Christmas, Thank You from the bottom of my heart. My kids are already planning all the surprises they want to do for someone next year. I can hardly wait to pay it forward.

One such surprise was one day when we opened to door to find bags full of presents as well as all this fun snow gear and beanie babies for each of the kids. Part of me felt guilty that my kids were getting spoiled way more than we would have done on even the best of years, but another part of me was so grateful that my kids who have had to sacrifice so much this year were having the Christmas of their dreams. 

I don't think any of us will ever forget the love that surrounded us this Christmas.

Another tradition we have is to drive around and look at lights on Christmas Eve.  This year we took it one step further and did our own Polar Express ride in our car with goody bags and hot chocolate for everyone and we drove out to Spanish Fork Festival of Lights. Ellie even got to come along. I took her out of her car seat while we drove through the lights. She was fascinated by them for about 5 minutes and then cried the rest of the time, but the other kids all had an absolute blast!

Then, of course, there were Christmas Eve jammies and slippers. Mason and Brynn have been dying for robes and so they were elated when their PJ sets included robes. (no one tell Miles that we just wrapped up one of his normal pairs of jammies that matched his new monkey slippers. The kid has a ridiculous amount of jammies and we just couldn't justify buying him more. He was perfectly happy.)

It may have been different and little more low key, but we really did have a wonderful Christmas season.

Bubba's Big Truck Birthday

 Our big Bubba turns two years old today. We cheated a little bit and had his party last month before Thanksgiving so he could have his moment before the hectic Christmas season began. With how crazy this week has been, I'm thinking it may have been the best decision I've ever made.
Miles loves Big Trucks! Fire trucks, garbage trucks, diggers, dump trucks, semi trucks, tractors, pick up trucks, to him they are all totally awesome. So what better way to celebrate our little boy than inviting our family to Miles' Truck Stop for a birthday bash.

Scott's little sister, TayLynn, was staying with us that week and made this sign for the party.

We had hot dogs and nachos, two of Miles' favorite foods. If I had been on my A game I would have had an assortment of truck stop snacks like beef jerkey, hostess snacks, and IBC rootbeer. It didn't happen, though.

 

Anyone who knows me knows that I love celebrating my kiddos' birthdays and one of my favorite things to do is the birthday cake. So you know I'm loosing my mind when my mom asked me the morning of the party when I was planning on making his cake and I thought, "Cake? What cake?" I 100% completely forgot about making a cake. The thought had never crossed my mind. I'm the absolute worst. So I quickly threw together this beauty. My inspiration was "Bampa's White Truck", Miles favorite truck of all.

It's not much, but Miles didn't seem to mind. What can I say, he's been short changed pretty much his whole life so he doesn't know any better. Sorry bud.

We had trucker hats for all of the kiddos to decorate. (Mason wouldn't decorate his because he was afraid he might mess up. Can you say OCD?)

Cannon, Miles, Mason, Brynn, TayLynn, Chase, Kennedy

Brynn's Go Phillies hat she made completely on her own. Her Daddy has successfully brainwashed her.

I planned on playing a few games including red light green light, but by the time everyone ate and got their hats decorated it was getting late. So we skipped straight to presents. Miles is easy to please and loved every gift, but was blown away when my parents gave him his very own Big Truck that drives around! The dark and freezing cold night didn't stop Miles from going out and riding it around until we forced him to bring it inside. He loves his big truck!

Couldn't get any good pictures in the dark so snapped this the next day.

It wasn't much, but Miles was very happy with his Big Truck birthday.

A little about 2-year-old Miles

Likes:

• Food. Any and all of it. I can't think of a single kind of food he won't gobble up like candy. He continues to out eat most of our family at every meal.
• Baby Einstein. Favorites are "EIO" (baby McDonald), "Rhino" (Shapes), and "Noah".
• Reading Books.
• Balls. Basketball, Soccer, and Football are favorites.
• Baby Ellie. He loves his baby! We have to watch him carefully to make sure he does love her to death.
• Brynn. He adores Brynn and doesn't know what to do when she isn't home. He will do anything she asks him to.
• Mason. Calls him Mase. He always runs to greet Mason after school with a big hug. Loves when Mason chases him around.
• Bampa. His favorite person in the world is Grandpa Val. Especially when he plays "Fetch" in his big white truck.
• Ja-Ja aka Grandma. He loves both my parents way more than he loves us. 
• Ipad. I wish it wasn't true, but he loves playing games on my mom's ipad. Unfortunately, it is a total life saver for me when I am tied up with Ellie and Brynn isn't home to play with Miles. 
• Outside. Even in the freezing temperature he takes off outside any chance he gets.
• Uh Oh. He calls his blankie his uh oh. He looks like Linus from Charlie Brown when he drags his blankie around the house sucking his thumb.
• E-I-O. Calls everything barn related E-I-O and loves all farm animals and singing Old McDonald had a farm.
• "Daddy git chew" aka Daddy get you. A game Scott and Miles play where Scott makes scary faces and noises while sneaking up on Miles. Miles gets terrified, screams, covers his face, and hides in my arms, but at the same time loves it and asks for more by saying, "Daddy git chew" over and over.
• Making Messes. More than any of my children Miles is very destructive and loves to rip, tear, dump, smear anything he can get his hands on. He will usually announce what he's going to do before he does it. Both funny and frustrating.
• Touching. He is a very hands on child and the words don't touch mean absolutely nothing to him.
• Pouring water. He loves to dump his cup in the sink, pour water from one cup to another, and fill cups up under the faucet. We often find him in the bathroom playing with cups in the sink.

Dislikes:

• Haircuts. He goes ballistic. 
• Cold Wipes when we are changing his diaper.
• Nursery. He starts shaking and crying during the closing song in sacrament meeting because he knows nursery is coming. Except at my mom's ward. Then he loves nursery.

Knows:

• "EFG" song (the alphabet song)
• Shapes
• Colors -- it's taken a while, but he's finally figuring them out.
• Count to 10
• Starting to speaking in sentences. There really isn't anything he doesn't say and we understand him 90% of the time.

Family of Six

Have you ever had family pictures taken and your baby is screaming the entire time, your toddler refuses to cooperate and sit still, your older kids are being super awkward with fake smiles and you leave thinking what a waste of everyone's time that was. Then your amazingly talented photographer delivers the pictures to you and as you look through the pictures you think, "was she even at the same photo shoot as us?" because the pictures turned out so awesome! That is exactly what happened a few weeks ago when we took family pictures with my dear friend Melanie Rice. I couldn't have asked for better pictures of our little family of six.

Thank you Melanie for capturing these pictures for us.