Christmas 2016: Part 2

Here is part 2 of our Christmas festivities! After some sickness and burnout, we ended up not doing everything I originally planned. Not that we tried!

Joey got the idea of Santa this year! He asked for marbles
(much to my dismay having a baby who puts everything in his mouth).
For fun, here are his previous Santa pictures.

Eli didn't scream like Joey did his age, but he wasn't into sitting
when there is mayhem to cause.

Christmas eve we debated whether we alls should go to Jessica's house
since Eli has been throwing up every day for a week,
but none of us wanted to miss the festivities.
 Here is Joey having the time of his life with his cousins.

Yummy cinnamon rolls ;)

Enjoying our brunch before Celestine's present rings the doorbell!

Jared and Jenny drove all the way from Palo Alto for Christmas! 

Their little puppy Chloe!

Joey was obsessed with her.

Reunited never felt so good!

Christmas to remember.

All the grandkids. Can you tell Sam photoshopped this picture?

Favorite thing gift exchange. Sam got Jacob a brain mold since
Sam is into medicine and Jacob is into AI. Also, Jello is delicious.

No caption needed.

Christmas jammies. A tradition I loved as a kid.

Christmas this year was...Oi. We had church at 9,
plus we were singing in the choir, plus two crazy kiddos,
so we did Christmas morning after church.

Eli's coupe.

Joey's tricycle.

Music instruments. "Joey, what's your favorite instrument?" "CYMBALS!"

Santa delivered.

We went to my parents house later in the day.
I got my mom a canvas print of my grandparents sledding.

Next day Sam and Joey went sledding themselves while Jared and Jenny were still in town. Sam only got stuck in the snow a few times with our little Honda Accord. Good thing Jared had a winch to save him. Joey liked sledding for a little bit, then watched TV in Jessica's car with some of her kids after a little bit.

Other activities that had no pictures: 

-White Elephant exchange at the Prestwich home

-Temple date on the Hobbs side of the family

-Game night, where we hired our first paid babysitter 

-Our attempt to go to River of Lights (we left too late and there was no parking!)

-Another Christmas concert we played for the Albuquerque East Stake

-Last but not least, our friends had their baby! Baby D is adorable and we had the pleasure to take care of their daughter for a few hours the day of while they were in the hospital. We do have a picture of him:

Whew! We are simplifying next year, I'm making that promise to myself! 

Christmas 2016: Part One

Happy Post Holidays! Taking advantage of my boys napping at the same time, I'm going to blog about our Christmas plans. I thought, Sam has the entire month of December off, we should try to do everything! Turns out there's too much of a good thing, and next year I'm going to simplify it as much as possible. But, I'm going to blog what we did end up doing!

11/28/16: The Nutcracker! We thought Joey might enjoy it, and he did very well for the first half.
Then we realized he is a three year old. At a ballet.

12/1-12/2/16: A Child is Born concert. We do this every year, but this was our last year.
It was better than I expected: I thought it was going to be a pretty long program but it hit about an hour. 

Jacob and Shauna were super kind to drop off a cookie making kit!
We decided to make the cookies for our neighbors and go caroling with the Boyacks. 

Festival of Trees: this was our first year going and it was really cute: live bands, free hot cocoa, a chance to see Santa, and lots of trees up for auction. There were a lot of cool looking trees, but these are the ones that made it onto our phones.
Note: Joey's first year of liking Santa!

Our bigger tree arrived and we immediately replaced our previous 4 footer.

Maybe not Christmas related, but Sam decided to take the kids to McDonald's for ice cream while I was off somewhere.

As offhandedly as I could manage I told Sam he should build me a farm house table during his long break. He broke out the laptop, found plans, tweaked them to create extension leaves, and whipped it out in what I thought was record time. Thanks to our parents in letting us borrow space and tools!

Complete with ghost chairs and a planter centerpiece.

Christmas card and letter!I wanted to go with a New Mexican theme since this is
our last year as New Mexicans (for a while at least). 

Hopefully I can whip out the rest of our holiday soon!

Dear Elijah,

Happiest Birthday to you! (Even though you were throwing up all week) This year definitely flew by and my baby is officially a toddler. Forgive my mush, but I just love my sweet little Eli. Everyone, even strangers we’ve met that day, comment on your happy demeanor and it has been such a blessing in our family. These past few weeks you haven’t been yourself with sickness and who knows what else, but you woke up super happy yesterday and I said a silent prayer of gratitude. I need your smiles in my life!

We’ll find out your height and weight when we go to the doctor, but I feel you have slowed down in growth to an average sized healthy child. Your hair lightened up, but you have a tan complexion, so I call you my California babe. You are a decent eater, and daddy took over the majority of solid feedings since I am a slow eater. However, you gave up baby food a while ago and still prefer nursing at times. Six teeth, and you know how to use those suckers. Not maliciously, but any time your mouth makes contact with anything your first instinct is to bite. I hope we can figure out not to do that!

You’ve started to really love having mama around. You are not as content as you once were having others hold you, but you still do fairly well (especially when I’m not in sight). I love to see you interact with your brother. Despite how rough Joey can be with you, he still the one that gets the biggest laughs out of you and you still follow him around. Your favorite things to do now is play with shoes, books, and cars. The boy life chose me with you and your brother. You like to gather and scatter and regather things, and we have a cute video of you with cans of green beans doing exactly that.

You will sometimes sleep through the night, but for the majority of the time these days you wake up at least once. However, I think it is because you haven’t been feeling well. Our New Year’s Goal for you, sleep through the night! Also, we should probably wean you from a binky and mama’s milk. Those are more for me to work on of course. You are a bit oblivious to these goals I have for you.

You know how to go up and down stairs, slide off the couch, and you can even take a few steps! Walking is right around the corner. My guess is within a month. You are ridiculously wiggly, and church is an adventure with you and your brother. You like to get into everything! We really should have baby-proofed our house by now, but I’m lazy. No words yet, but you are starting to copy certain sounds. You will high-five, wave (if we are lucky), and clap. Maybe when you are in a more copying mood I’ll teach you some sign language.

It is amazing how different you are from your brother. Yet it is so easy to love you both. At times it is difficult to have to share my time and attention with the both of you. Guilt can set in when I think about the times when it was just me and your older brother, and I could give him my full attention. I could not give that to you most of the time. So, thank you for still being our happy, patient little guy. Thank you for helping me become a better person and to let go of less important things. It won’t be easy at times, but I promise I love you so much. We love you so much. Always be that ray of sunshine I need in my life.

Love, Mama