To surprise my mom and dad who are moving into the home in American Fork they bought last month we went over and set up some Christmas decorations for them. Pulling in and needing to move in a few days before Christmas only to leave a few days after that was going to be challenging. I knew it wouldn't be a priority to decorate for Christmas and I knew my mom would be a little sad at that lack of holiday cheer, so the sibs pooled extra/old Christmas decorations together and a bunch of us met to set them up. It was fun.
Kayla, Eddie and cute Miss P and Ollie came to stay for Christmas! We moved Gwen and Alec out of the two rooms upstairs so they could use them and so Alec slept on the floor in the library with Max and Gwen shared with Freddy and Charlie across from our bedroom with Theo. We had the traditional Raclette night with Bruce and Dianes and Gene and Dorcus' families. We had it at Edward and Kayla's condo's Clubhouse. A little crazy with all the kids running around with not much to do, but there was a small projector/theater room downstairs that the big kids loved. Also another night we all gathered for our traditional singing night.
Christmas Eve we got together with all the Archibald's to reenact the nativity and have challah bread and clam chowder
Theo has got abs of STEEL! He will keep his toes and head/shoulders above the ground for long long periods of time... he'll stay this way through an entire diaper change! Its so funny. Christmas Eve, Freddy dropped a nerf gun over the stairs when he didn't realize that Max was coming up the stairs and it landed on Max's face and completely split his forehead opened. There was a lot of blood (head wound) but he was super brave and stopped crying before I even got him to the sink to clean it up. But thats what the white X on his forehead is in all these pictures. Chris superglued it together and the bandaids got stuck to that too, so.... it'll be a while before it comes off.
Christmas Day was pretty low key. We gave Theo rice cereal for the first time. He was not impressed.
The cousins also came over for the cousin gift exchange. This year, we had a rule that the gifts had to be handmade. It was quite the time commitment for the mamas to help the kids think of something they could make that would also be wanted. I think our kids came up with some great ideas. Freddy helped me sew Jane a fancy silk/rhinestone purse, Alec made a football game for Jackson, and Charlie made a basketball game for Austin and Gwen made a cape and crown for Isla.
Alec's birthday breakfast 'in bed'. He turned 13! An official teenager. We met some family at the Provo Rec Center for a swim session, using our kids Rec Center Passes they got for Christmas for the first time. Then had cupcakes and icecream later.
We did a lot of fun stuff with the Archibald's this Christmas. We went ice skating (not as many adults per child as would have been nice since Jess and Ryan couldn't make it... it was kind of a circus act with all the young babies and younger kids on the ice needing help. I think I wore Theo on my self and carried Max on my shoulders while pushing the stroller with the twins in it at one point. We also went to University Mall to do the Giving Machines. We bought a well and some chickens and other things. That was really cool. We let each kid pick what they wanted to give and a few kids combined for the well. We also rented a large house in Orem to stay for a few nights all ALL together. Except... the gathering places were even smaller than Grandma and Grandpas house and Edward and Grandpa and Ryan didn't sleep there. It was actually kind of nuts and we thought, why didn't we just have a few sleepovers at Grandma's? The kitchen was tiny and weird but it was fun to be together for entire days and 3 meals. We did gingerbread houses, played games, watched movies, ate good food. My A1C was getting lower at my last appointment so I got a little lax and let myself have a very SMALL handful of candy when we made the gingerbread houses, and I ate a small portion of actual white rice (not cauliflower rice) with the curry.. etc... and when I checked my numbers the day after we left the Orem house, my numbers were INSANE like mid 300s, close to 400. It was depressing and I have to go back to eating almost zero carbs until I can get my blood sugar in the right range.
