Double Christmas?!?

Flying stand-by, we have the benefit of flying whenever we want, as long as others AREN'T flying, which means around holidays there are never enough seats for us.  We could tell early on that the flights to Utah weren't looking good unless we left LATE Christmas Eve or at 8 am Christmas morning.  So with a little convincing and twisting the truth, we decided to celebrate Christmas morning on the 24th.
We had a traditional Christmas Eve dinner (on the 23rd) of ham & potatoes (This was my first time doing it, so its not actually traditional for us).  Then we played out the nativity, sang some songs, made cookies for Santa and watched the end of Polar Express.  Both kids slept in our room.  I had to run to the store to get more formula, so that kind of made the Christmas Eve feeling go away a bit.  Dave and I enjoyed wrapping a few more presents and getting excited for our kids happiness the next day.

Both Dave and I woke before the kids at 6:30, Hallie was up by 7 and Jackson was completely zonked out until 7:20.  We had the lights on and were talking in normal voices waiting for him to wake up and he took so long!  When he woke up it took him several minutes before he asked in a sneaky voice, "Hey, is it CHRISTMAS day?!?"  When we replied YES, he was so excited.


As we walked out to go see the Santa loot, I stepped on the bed holding Hallie and threw my back out.  It was terrible timing (is it ever good?) and I was in pain the rest of the morning (luckily it wasn't REALLY Christmas and my Chiro came over and straightened me out and I felt back to 100% 4 days later.  This is the first time since pre-pregnancy that it went out.  I guess I am cursed to have a weak back, but at least I know it can heal and I can run sometimes, too!

So anyway, Santa totally hit the spot with our kids this year.  Jackson got a Buzz Lightyear and Hallie got a oversized stuffed dog.  They were in heaven!  I got a new scent from Dave :).  We gave Jackson a train table (complete with trucks, planes, boats and helicopters too) and he has been loving that.  We enjoyed spending time as a family and even though it wasn't big and busy like I am used to, I loved the focus on our kids and the fun we had together.  The hard part is that we couldn't enjoy being lazy and messy the rest of the day because we were leaving for Utah, so we did dishes, packed, cleaned, vacuumed, etc.  Unfortunately because of my back, Dave had to do most of it.

We headed to the airport and passed out goodie bags to those who helped us.  Most people were SO happy to get a little bag of treats from a little boy.  It made me want to do it more often (we got 6 seats for the 4 of us because the lady at the check in counter liked us :).

We enjoyed a 2nd Christmas Eve with the Ahlstrom's and stayed up late enjoying company.  Hallie was up early and then we had another Christmas morning of fun, presents and love.  My favorite present to give was a Kindle Fire to Dave.   He's been playing alot with it, which means it was a hit :).  I really loved having church on Christmas.  It brought the focus to where it should be.
Hallie's church dress

 We were lazy for the next 3 days (we'll I should say I was lazy and Dave was busy working from home!)  We ate A LOT, played MANY games and the Wii my parents received.  It was fun to be with my siblings and parents.  We really enjoy spending time together.  The only sad part is I couldn't go skiing or snowshoeing because of my back.  I did do a lot of hot tubbing.  There was only one flight remotely open for returning home, so at 8:15 one evening we headed home.  Hallie fell asleep after lots of crying and Jackson stayed up until 11:15 that night.  I read a book on the kindle . . . does that mean it was a present for myself too?
Kids and hubby are happy, lots of time with family and lots of good food . . . Perfect holiday season!
(and once again, NO photos from Utah!)

 Here's is my Christmas miracle story:
 I started off December with a post about doing 25 days of service.  One of my friends in Orem decided she wanted to do it with her kids, too.  One of the items on the list was visiting a Senior Living center.  We didn't actually get to do that one (we only did 10 days or so :( ) But my friend blogged about how they had met a sweet older lady and she had made their day.  Her exact quote was, "  We have visited a nursing home where we absolutely made a beautiful woman's day.  She had tears in her eyes as she brushed my children's cheeks and told them that she loved them and asked them to be her friend."
Over the Christmas break we visited Dave's Grandma who is living in a center.  As we were looking for our Christmas card which had disappeared in her room somewhere, I found a homemade Santa and on it were the name of my friends 2 kids.  I immediately remembered her blog and felt that Heavenly Father had a hand in sending my friend to visit our grandma for the holiday when we weren't able to.  I feel like Heavenly Father loves this woman and is watching out for her in ways she doesn't understand right now.  It filled my heart with love for her, for my friend who was willing to serve someone she didn't know and for God in His watchful care for each of His children.   We love you, Grandma!