Christmas Time

The last half of December was pretty busy.
Mark's dad ended up in the hospital on the 9th, nothing serious but was scary. That weekend we talked with him and decided it would be best for him to move-in with us so we could help him out and keep an eye on him. He wasn't released from the hospital till the 16th, but we got all his stuff over on the 11th including his dog, Bubba. The boys were excited to have this little puppy around. It took him some time to get use to us and being in a new place, but he has adjusted well.
The 16th was my Family Christmas party. It was held at our house this year. It was a lot of fun. We started it out by doing a combined Birthday party for all the birthdays in December and January. Once dinner was ready we all sat down to a nice turkey dinner that my husband made. I'll admit I have never made a turkey, Mark has always done it. I've helped here or there, but he always takes over and does most of the work. After dinner was cleaned up we gathered the kids together and had my dad do the traditional reading of I Believe In Santa Claus. The kids all clapped for him and gave him a hug afterwards. We then exchanged Christmas gifts and hung out the rest of the night.
Mark's extended family is getting so big(over 100 people including kids, grandkids, and greatgrands) that they decided to stop having annual Christmas get-togethers. We did get to see a lot of the Peterson clan on the 18th at one of Mark's cousin's mission homecoming.
On the 20th I slipped while walking down the stairs, I hit the first step and bounced on my tailbone and landed on the last one. My tailbone is still sore12 days later. That's the one bad thing about tailbone injuries they take forever to heal. I was really worried about Lyla after the fall, but I felt her moving a bit afterwards and had no bleeding. I did call the doctor and he told me she would be fine. Chances for any damage to her after a fall like that were minimal. I did have my doctors appointment on the 23rd and her heartbeat was good and she is still measuring on time.
The 22nd was my extended family party. We had it at a church of course, my side is getting pretty big too. I had been sick for the past week and didn't have much of a voice so I didn't get to sing in the sing-a-long or during the "war". It was really hard on me to just sit there while everyone around me was singing. As my aunts & uncles got things ready for the pinata Emmett took a tumble. He had been playing with Chase and following him. The climbed up onto the stage and jumped off. Well Emmett only being 23 months didn't land right and hit his face somehow. His teeth cut the inside of his cheek a bit but enough for it to bleed. It took forever to calm him down. Mark ended up taking him out to the van to watch Scooby Doo, which helped. We had forgotten his bear at home, BIG MISTAKE. Chase did a great job with the pinata, when it finally broke open he went after the bouncy balls and passed up the candy, silly kid. Then my grandparents handed out cards for everyone. We didn't stay much later due to Emmett. He ended up with a sore jaw and a little bruise on his cheek.
Christmas Eve was great. We spent the afternoon at Mark's brother's place. We exchanged gifts with them, watched The Muppet Christmas Carol, and had snacks. Dave(Mark's dad) stayed there for the night and Mark's sister, Kiera, came home with us. We had dinner, opened up a new pair of jammies, changed into said jammies, watched The Year Without A Santa Claus, set out cookies and milk for Santa and got the boys to bed. My boys have this habit of coming into my room in the middle of the night and trying to sleep in our bed. Well Christmas eve was no different. They came up and we made them go back down a couple times. They never went into the living room though. Mark and I got up early to get the Sticky buns ready. While they were rising we went back to bed. The boys woke up at 7 and the sticky buns weren't quite ready. So we decided to open gifts while they finished rising. The boys loved their gifts and had tons of fun opening them and kept wanting more. While Chase opened one of his gifts he said, "What... the.... hell.... is.....this?" pauses in between each word but you could tell he couldn't stop himself. Don't know where he learned it. We all got mad at him, I actually tapped him on the head with the present I had been about to help Emmett open. Chase had some other problems with being good that day and was a little bit of a terror. We went to Church that afternoon. They only held sacrament meeting. The talks were wonderful! After lunch we picked Dave up from Robby's and went to visit his parents. My parents met us at the house afterwards so they could visit the boys for a bit. We didn't have a big turkey dinner we just had ham and church potatoes. It was delicious.
On the 31st we piled Mark's siblings and their kids into our van and Kiera's car and drove down to Nephi. We met his mom and step-dad there for lunch and to exchange gifts with them. The kids were all over the place. Luckily they had let us use their banquet room. They had a really cool train that ran all around the restaurant. It was really nice getting to see them for a few hours.

And that ends our Christmas adventures. We never got up to Temple Square to see the lights :( I was sick for half the month and Emmett was sick for a bit too.