Gearing up for Christmas

The month of December has been full of fun.  We've worked hard and played hard.  We've also been sick hard.  Every one of us has seemed to catch something.  Hailey and Emi had minor colds.  Joel got bronchitis and was home from work for a week.  I caught the tail end of his cold and finished off the year with a gnarly cough/cold.

We have been waiting and watching for Brystol to come, but unless she comes the day after I write this, she'll be a 2018 baby. The girls are getting more and more excited because we said Brystol would come at Christmas.  Well, Christmas came and went and we're still waiting.  We have had many Dr's appointments and it's made for some long days.  Hailey came early at 37 weeks and Emi came around 38-39 weeks, so for Brystol to be almost 42 weeks, it has us all baffled. So we continue to wait.  She's healthy, just apparently very comfy where she's at.

We've had a full Christmas especially with Joel's family coming to visit, but that's a post in itself with everything that we've done.

We sometimes get a Kids Club monthly pass because the kids can play while we are exhausted and nap!

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We have tried to still manage to get things done and have a good time in the meantime.  There was lots of crafting to get ready for Christmas.  I'm tinkering with my new serger and having a good time doing it.  There's more scrundies, which the girls are loving their new underwear and don't want to take off for days at a time.  I've tinkered with making a few sewing machine/serger covers.  They just keep getting better.  I've made wet/dry bags for wipes, pens, or just general holding bags.

New serger means time to buy fabric to make scrundies for everyone!

Hailey jumped off the bed and knocked her head on the pull out drawer handle.  Lots of blood for a little poke!

Christmas Pedicures with the girls, Rachel Anderson and Samantha Spendlove

Daddy Time.

The traditional Christmas See's Chocolate lollipop.

The girls loved going and looking at all the Christmas lights.

Gearing up for Christmas Time with Lights and the Polar Express

It's December and the girls are beyond excited for everything associated with Christmas.  They know that Brystol is coming at Christmas time, Santa comes, and we learn about baby Jesus.  

They were excited to pick out a tree and even though it sat naked for a couple days we eventually got lights and ornaments on them.  Well the lights were up the same day that Emi stuck a poof ball up her nose, but after the delay, it's looking much better... Well, maybe not in this picture! But that's how things look when the 3-4 year olds decorate.

Joel was excited about the tree but he's more excited about putting the lights up outside.  Each year we buy a string or two of extra lights.  This year we had enough to line the outside of the house, but since we have two large pine bush trees he wants to wrap those too!  Coming home to lights turned out and leaving for work with lights on makes him happy.

 One of the things that we found last year that we really enjoyed was going to Western Elite's Christmas Express.  It replicates the the Polar Express pretty closely and it's usually a lot of fun.  Last year they had an exclusive military night and there were maybe 800-1000 people.  This year was a general public night and it was crazy with lots of people ~3000.

We got there and the line for the train was wrapping the entire place.  We invited Katelyn, Jacob and McCall to come with us.  It worked out really well because Joel and McCall stood in line for the Express and kept each other company while Katelyn and I watched the kids and took them on the mini train ride, made potty runs, and got food and hot chocolate for everyone.  It was crazy but a lot of fun.  It was stressful for Joel, but he made it through.

Hot Chocolate face!