The Holidays

Here we are, at the start of a new year!  I can't believe that we're on our last day of school vacation.  In fact, I thought school started today.  We were all ready to start...and then I logged into their school schedule and discovered that school doesn't actually start back until tomorrow!  Needless to say, that came as a happy surprise, and now I look forward to another day of relaxing getting some work done around the house. 

The past two weeks have been so relaxing and much needed.  I figure, since I have some extra time on my hands, that I'll actually talk about what we've been doing.  More for myself than anyone else, really!  We started out our vacation by celebrating Mason's 9th birthday.  He opted to do some things with family this year, instead of having a party.  We met up with cousins at AirWorx, which is a trampoline fun house, and they really enjoyed jumping around and playing games, and then having lunch together afterwards.  That night, we went as a family to Peter Piper Pizza, and the boys has a blast playing all the games and getting tickets.  They were able to pick out a couple of prizes at the end, and Jodie and I enjoyed watching them have fun together.  Mason declared it to be his best birthday ever!  Did I bring a camera to any of these fun things?  Nope.  I'm getting pretty bad at remembering my camera...and I'm kind of sad I didn't get any pictures.  : (  I also missed capturing Mason's face when he saw his new bike!  He was so excited and shouted, "A bike!"  I love giving my boys gifts just to see that expression on their faces.

The night before Christmas Eve, we went to the Mesa LDS Temple to look at the annual Christmas lights.  I did share those pictures in the post before this.  Before seeing the lights we met at a park to celebrate Mason's birthday with the rest of the family, and had soup and hot cocoa.  It was really just nice time with family, and the kids were so cute playing together.  I always feel so lucky that Mason and Connor have so many cousins their age to play with.  Here is a great picture of the cousins who were able to come, courtesy of my brother in law, Jake.

On Christmas Eve we went to a party at one of Jodie's uncle's houses.  Every year my mother in law's side of the family gets together on Christmas Eve, for fabulous food and to give Jodies' grandma a chance to give all the great grandchildren their presents.  The kids had a good time running around, and we enjoyed the seemingly endless food.  Each year we have ham balls, which are like meat balls but with ground up ham.  They are really yummy, and we look forward to having them all year.  Again, I forgot my camera, but I promise we had fun!

On Christmas Day the boys actually slept until 7...a holiday miracle!  They were super excited to see what Santa brought them.  He didn't disappoint, of course.  ; )  I think this may be the last year we'll be able to experience the boys' complete belief in Santa (Mason is already questioning it all), so I really wanted to enjoy the spirit of it.  The boys each received a giant stuffed dog, and an original Nintendo, complete with Game Genie. (Remember those?) Afterwards we immediately tore into the rest of the gifts, and they were just as excited.  Connor received clothes, the Transformers ark, some Transformers figures, and a mini Pillow pet, to name a few things.  Mason received clothes, a Paper Jam guitar, an accordion, and a mini Pillow pet, among other things.  I loved seeing their excitement, and we actually did get some pictures...thanks to Jodie!

Later that day we were able to go to church with Jodie's parents, and his brother, Ben, and his family.  After that we went to Ben's house, and honestly had a really great time.  The kids played, we had a White Elephant exchange, and we had a great Mexican food meal.  (Jodie's brother, Ben, made the best salsa, which I have been craving ever since!)  It was just a great Christmas.  Watching all the kids open the presents from their grandparents, and playing games together, was awesome.  We also played a hilarious game that Ben had bought at a candy shop.  You have a box of jelly beans, and you hit a spinner.  Whatever color you land on has two options.  For green it was juicy pear or booger.  You then had to eat the jelly bean and find out what flavor you get.  It was disgusting, but really hilarious.  My niece, Bella, was the first to get a gross jelly bean...moldy cheese.  She took it like a champ and soon we had someone getting skunk spray, another dog food, and another centipede.  I got lucky and got strawberry.  After all the fun it was hard to go back home, but we truly had a great Christmas.  I hope you did, too!

Tomorrow I'll tell a little story about Jodie on New Year's Eve.




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