Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Here are a few pictures of our Christmas.  We got snowed in on Christmas Eve and spent the day as just Mark, me and the kids playing board games and baking.  I made the mistake of running to the store and when it was time to drive home the roads were so bad that I slid backward down the least steep of the hills that take you up to the bench.  I ended up hiking up our hill through our neighbors backyards (with three hot pizzas, I must've looked like a dedicated delivery person) and the van stayed at the bottom of the hill 'til the snow stopped and roads were cleared around 10:30 p.m.

 Along with baking wondeful treats together, Mark used our time to teach the kids how to cut up a whole chicken for a quick and easy meal.  The kids hated the demonstration (see Aubrielle's face) and I'm pretty sure Ava is a vegetarian now, but we laughed a lot.

 Christmas Day, a winter wonderland!  I wish you could see all the trees fat with snow, and the best kind of fluffy, sparkly snow!  It is gorgeous outside!!!

Christmas Breakfast, Eggnog French Toast, sausage and ham & egg scramble with spinach and mozzerella cheese.

          Amari loved shredding presents!  The kids are super happy with all of thier gifts!

                                Ava loves her "Big Daddy" with the fluffy, soft, bald, head!

                            Grandma dancing with Jason to Feliz Navidad, we do this every year and everyone dances along! (well, almost everyone!)

                   Get the instruments out and play some christmas music!!  Renee on the fiddle

Renee, Jason and Robby

                                     Me and Dan try to keep up, learning new songs as we go!

               My girls Ava, Amari and Aubrie playing with the new DS game, Zhu Zhu Pets.

         Ammoriah and Andrew getting some snacks.  We had Nanaimo Bars made with Angelina's canadian recipe and for my first time I think they turned out pretty awesome!

A great dinner with family and friends!  We enjoyed the nativity story and sweet messages of love and appreciation for eachother, (then danced to Feliz Navidad again).

Family Christmas Fun

What a Christmasy Day!  We enjoyed beautiful music at church, then we were off for family fun!

 My Dad and Marla are seated in the middle, these are thier five children, children in law, and grandchildren.  I love this picture, I don't think we've ever taken one with all of us before. 

                                                                Dad & Marla's home

                                            The grandchildren's table.  What a feast we had!

                                   Jason & Rene'e, with Jason's mom Angelina, who traveled from Chiliwack, BC, Canada to enjoy the holidays with us all.
   

                                                                              Dad & Marla

                                                 Mark & Dawn, Feliza, Izzy, and Landon

Our family; Mark & I, Andrew, Aubrielle, Ammoriah, Ava and Amari.  We all sang Christmas carols with Uncle Clifford and Aunt Mollyanne at the piano.  So much fun!!

                                                           Angelina, Jason & Rene'e

                                                         Dad, Alex, Marla and Bryn


The Second Party of the night was at my Mom's house.  We had a blast opening gifts, listening to Jason & Rene'e play music, and then we watched White Christmas with props and a full sing-along!

                     Grandma gave Amari a big princess doll house, she was pretty excited!

 The bigger kids got nerf guns and ran around shooting things, Grandma didn't mind. Wow.

 Jason & Rene'e played a few songs for us and sounded amazing!  It's great having a musical family!

 Our tradition:  Watch White Christmas together, using props and singing to every song.  Our friend Robbie joined us, here is Robbie and Rene'e with the "Sister's" song blue feather boas! 

Feliz La-ti-da!

 Let the festivities begin!  My brother Mark, sis-in-law Dawn, and neices and nephew Feliza, Izzy and Landon are here this weekend from Bountiful.  My sister Rene'e, and bro-in-law Jason arrived from Boise!!  Music, madness, games, food, giggles, chaos and overall perfection this weekend!!

 Our tree has a pile of presents from friends, neighbors, and big boxes delivered from our California family!

 A wonderful surprise when Holly Rasmussen stopped by for a visit!  We love you!!!

                                Dawn says she hasn't played in 20 years, but she's pretty good!

                        Mark and Mark shooting pool, and taught Mr. Landon a few tricks too.

             Teen girls in Aubrie's room (Amy and Feliza) and something interesting on the internet.

 Tween girls playing Rumicub, Ammoriah and Izzy who were born two months apart.  The "Riley Twins"

                      Watching old SNL Christmas skits and laughing til our cheeks hurt!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

We found some time for happiness, and here's some pics to share;

                        Amari is all dressed up for her Christmas Dance performance at LaShar's.

         Here is Amari with her best friend Kairi performing the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

                              Here is Ava performing with her dance class to Jingle Bell Rock.

So proud of Andrew and his buddies making a 6 foot tall snowman with a little too much detail.  Of course they destroyed it by running and crashing into it and laughing hysterically.

 OK, this was one of the non-fun moments.  Mark needed his first blood transfusion, and spent all day Friday at Logan Regional Hospital.  His numbers are closer to normal now, and he feels better.

         Dan and Cindy getting into the "Chocolatey Goodness" at the End of the World Party

                 Mark and I won cowboy hats in the white elephant game, don't we look spiffy!

 The power went out at the party, and we got the guns ready in case the Zombie Apocolypse was underway.  The girls were having fun posing with guns especially with Kathy making us laugh so hard :)

Another happy moment:  Ava lost her front tooth.  She's pretty excited about it.  Amari wanted to be in the picture too, can you tell? 

Christmas time is Here

      Mark is finally doing better.  It was several days of muscle cramps and pain in his side and back, a dozen trips from Home Health, lots of phone calls and guesswork. At times it was really bad. I pray this doesn't come back.  Mark still cannot lie down flat, he sleeps in a recliner.  His energy is low, low, low and he has foggy, chemo brain most of the time.  
      There have been some nice moments lately, surprise gifts and cards, treats, kind words and quiet times to sit under the tree, by the fireplace, or watch the snow fall.  Lots of people are carrying a heavy heart this holiday season, life can be very tough.  I hope we all find those moments of comfort and joy. 

Crazy Couple of Days

It's been a rough couple of days for Mark and I.  It started in the middle of the night, strong, sharp pains on his right side, near the cracked rib.  Mark has been in serious pain.  We tried pain meds, heating pad, sitting him in a recliner, meditation, prayer, anything that we could think of.  They might be a muscle spasm, but they are really aweful.  We finally spoke to the Huntsman team and home health and we tried different meds.  This works, but only for a few hours then the pain comes back with a vengeance.  It's been a huge challenge to decide what to do.  When the pain is at it's worst Mark's breathing becomes labored and this was a big concern for our nurses.  We've discussed going to the ER, but they already know that they will run a series of tests and have limited ability to help Mark in his unique situation.  If this situation doesn't improve we'll probably need treatment at the Huntsman. 

I was able to step out a little while Mark slept.  Life goes on.  My friend Susan is in town over her birthday weekend, and we managed to get four of us together for lunch at her favorite place Mandarin Garden.

Me, Nancy, Karen & Susan at Mandarin Garden

 On Friday, my girl's had thier last day of school before the Christmas break.  I went to Ava's second grade class party.  Here she is with her classmates playing "Don't Eat Pete!!"  She's kinda shy and as we were leaving to go home she asked me if I would come to the next class party and said, "It's fun when you're here, everybody likes you."  It's not hard to win over a bunch of 7 year olds, unless you're shy.  Interesting statement from Ava.

 Next was a craft to decorate snowflakes, followed by igloos made out of sugar cubes and frosting. Sticky fun!

 Ava with her buddy Ariana after they got thier books in the book exchange game.  Right after this party we came home and learned the news about the shootings in the Elementary School in CT.  What a sobering thought, what a tragedy!  My heart goes out to all of the innocence lost on this day.

 I stopped by the Haws open house for an hour to get hugs, eat yummy food, and share a few laughs.  Here's Marc Haws on Greg's lap telling him what he wants for Christmas because he's been so good this year, ha ha!

 Our friends the Oswalds and the Gardners, we love you all so much.  We sure love you guys!

Wanna hear something kinda interesting?  There is a place on the blog for me to see which countries are reading it.  I thought that was cool, and I learned that in addition to my friends that live far, far away such as Jason, Holger and Shalise in Germany, Nadine in Australia, lots of friends in Canada, and Jeff in South Korea, I have mystery friends in Italy, Russia, India, Isreal, Sweden, United Kingdom and Indonesia.  So either my friend Theresa who is a flight attendant, is reading from her layovers, or I've made some new friends in the world.  I just wanted to say "hi" to them. :)