Christmas 2012

The boys made Christmas magical this year!
Christmas morning started at about 8:30 at our house when Ethan came running into our room breathlessly yelling, "there is a huge rocket out there, Santa brought a huge rocket!"  We wanted to wait for Caden to wake up so we tried to keep Ethan in our bed for a little while, he was too excited to even sit still.  I told him to run out to the kitchen to check to see if Santa ate the cookies we left out for him, he jumped off our bed so fast it sounded like a bomb dropped, and then Caden was awake!
The Santa gifts and the present unwrapping stretched out for a long time, the boys wanted to play with each thing before moving on to the next.
Ethan was the best!  He was so excited about every little thing.  I'm surprised he had a voice at the end of the day because he was yelling all morning, "I love it!  This is what I always wanted."  Even the Pez dispenser in his stocking got a whoop!
This little video is just an example of how Ethan was all day.

Caden was pretty overwhelmed.  He just wanted to unwrap every present in sight.  After being told for a few weeks he couldn't open the presents yet, he just couldn't contain himself.
This little video is when he first woke up, I love that when we asked him about the rocket ship, he said Santa brought him a box.  Can't fool this kid.
In the early morning hours...before the mayhem began!

 And then the mayhem begins: (and my house still looks like a disaster today).

 Everyone had the best Christmas ever!  I think little Quinn even enjoyed his first Christmas.  He almost slept though it.  After staying up all night, he slept a great long stretch from 5 am to noon.  His favorite gift was his beautiful new quilt from Grandma Karen.  He loves the soft minky side and snoozed most of the day snuggled up in his new blanket.

That evening we had some friends come over for dinner, we ordered Chinese take-out and had a great time.

The other day as I was driving with the boys I said, "I'll be sad when it's not Christmas time anymore because I'll miss singing along with you guys to the Christmas songs on the radio."  Ethan said, "I'll be sad when it's not Christmas anymore too."  I thought he would mention the presents or something, but then he said, "I'll be sad when it's over because then everyone will stop talking about Jesus."  I thought it was really sweet, and assured him we would still talk about Jesus everyday.  But I've been thinking about what he said all week and realizing he is right, part of the magic feeling of Christmas comes because for this one special holiday most of the world regardless of religion or culture is united in hope and charity thinking of Christ.  How great would it be if we could see that magic in the world everyday.

To me, Christmas day was perfect this year, one that I hope I can always remember!

Christmas Eve 2012

In our 7 years of marriage this was the first year we didn't travel for Christmas.  We love being with our families, but it was so fun this year to decide what traditions we wanted to do for our own little family for Christmas Eve.

We started our evening with a fun fondue dinner, it was a lot of work holding a baby and helping the boys cook their food, but they loved it...especially the chocolate fondue!  During dinner I changed Quinn and as I was walking past the window by the front door I noticed it had snowed!  We got a white Christmas!  The boys were so excited they both ran out without shoes, or coats and did a few laps around the driveway.

After dinner Clark read the story of Jesus' birth from the Bible while the boys and I acted it out.  This year both of the boys wanted to be shepherds.

Quinn did not enjoy being the babe in the manger at all!!!

After our nativity we each went around the room and talked about why Jesus was important to us.  Ethan started talking about prayer and getting answers to prayers.  We pointed out that he has a testimony of Jesus and that made him really excited.  Caden said Jesus is special because he was such a cute baby.

Before bed everyone in the family got to open one gift...and surprise!  Christmas jammies for everyone!

If I could use one word to describe the night it would be EXCITEMENT!  The boys were at the perfect ages this year to be so excited for Christmas!  After they put on their jammies we wanted a cute picture, and it took a lot of outtakes to get one that was decent.  I smiled today looking at all the outtakes because I can see the anticipation and excitement of Christmas Eve in all of those pictures!

The Good Shot:

A Few of the Outtakes:

Quinn's paranoid expression is my favorite.

Don't flap your arms Caden.

Arm flapping was better than this...Did I mention they were excited!?

Quinn's reindeer bum was my favorite!

We read the Twas the Night Before Christmas and tucked them into bed...all but Quinn, who must have been too excited for Santa, because he didn't go to sleep until the wee small hours of the morning.  We are lucky Santa even made it that night!

Christmas Eve 2012 was perfect.  My heart was so full of love and gratitude for my wonderful little family, all night I had the thought "it can't get better than this."

Romanian Christmas Eve Memory

Today as I was writing emails to missionaries I couldn't help but think about my own Christmas as a missionary.  It was a unique experience to be away from home and family.  To avoid feeling homesick my companion and I decided to really enjoy and learn about the beautiful Romanian Christmas traditions and to focus on service.  Looking back now it is one of my sweetest Christmas memories.

The month leading up to Christmas I loved the stacks of cabbage along the streets, I thought they looked like Christmas trees!

Sister Cone and I had moms that helped make service really easy for us.  My mom sent me a package full of cute bags, little toys, nativity Christmas ornaments, and lots of fun things that we could put together to give to the families that we knew and taught.  It was so fun to spread Christmas cheer everywhere we went.

Sister Cone's mom had the ladies in her ward in Maryland help her make fleece blankets.  They sent us 2 HUGE boxes of blankets to give out to people.  We had a special day visiting an AIDS hospital giving out the blankets to people who desperately needed comfort, they were so appreciative of their blankets.

My giant bagpack and laundry bag were filled with blankets!

We met this guy on the bus one day, just taking his (live) Christmas goose home for Christmas dinner.

These little boys were right below our apartment dressed as bears and dancing right below our window one day.  The dancing bear tradition started long ago, when real bears were escorted into the towns and villages, trained to dance to the music.  Now men and boys dress in bear costumes.  This tradition is supposed to bring good luck in the new year.  So fun!

Our actual Christmas Eve was great!  We woke up to a huge snow storm that morning!

We bundled up and made our way to the church where we had a Christmas party with all of the other missionaries serving in Bucharest.

Somehow all of the sisters wore red sweaters.

Early in the season Sister Cone and I bought a Christmas tree and decorated it.  We decided we would keep the tree until we found a family that needed one.  On Christmas Eve we found our family, the elders we were serving with told us about a family that had no Christmas.  We bundled up and set off on an adventure to deliver our secret tree.  We had to take the tree on the subway, a bus, and the tramvai.  We got a lot of interesting looks.

When we found the family's street we had to walk through the snow a ways, slipping and sliding the whole way.  We fell down several times and just giggled.  When we got close to the house, we put all of the decorations back on the tree, dropped the tree off on the door, rang the doorbell and ran and hid.  We couldn't stop smiling when we heard them open the door and pictured the looks on their faces!

As we made our way home on that cold night I know we both felt the true spirit of Christmas.  The next day several families opened their homes to us, sharing their traditional meals and Christmas celebrations with us.  I found Christmas thousands of miles away from everything that had ever meant Christmas to me before.  So many great memories!  I LOVE Romania!

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Last week I was trying to think of a fun treat to take to some of our neighbors here in the retirement community, so we could get to know them better.  Then I had the thought that if we really wanted to get to know them better we would invite them over for a little Christmas get together.
Although I love to host parties, this one was out of my comfort zone simply because besides waving and saying hello we really don't know our neighbors...but on Monday we made invites and Ethan delivered them!

After the invites were out I panicked about what to serve...we knew for sure that at least 3 of our invited guests have had heart attacks recently, and one lady answered the door hooked up to her oxygen tank!

On Wednesday we baked and cleaned, it was no small feat with 3 little boys "helping."  But we somehow managed...literally putting the vacuum away as the first guests knocked on the door.  After we got everything set up I worried no one would come, especially after two people called that night and said they couldn't make it due to the cold weather or sickness.  The boys were so excited for the party, and lucky for us 6 people came!  They were so nice and fun to get to know a little better!

I'm not sure if their impression of us (the only people with crazy kids in the hood) changed at all.  Ethan and Caden are quite the entertainers.  At one point of the night both boys came up in their Halloween costumes.  Ethan wore his new swim goggles for a portion of the evening.  One of the men started talking about how we needed snow so the boys could have a snowball fight.  Ethan snuck downstairs, filled his hard hat with little plastic balls, ran back up and launched them at the man and yelled "snowball fight!"  At one point Caden stood by the Christmas tree and started belting out "Baby You're a Firework" at the top of his lungs.  And in the middle of the evening Ethan stood in front of everyone and said, "now its time to dance..."  everyone looked at me with scared expressions, and I quickly reassured them we weren't really planning on a dance component to the evening.
And I wonder why the women kept saying, "wow, you have your hands full."

This little guy did make a good impression!  He was sweet and alert and all of the grandmas wanted to hold him!

All in all I would say the night was a success!  I'm thinking it may be a new tradition while we are living here!

You Are My Sunshine

Look who grinned at me yesterday morning!

The sun was shining through the window and he was so happy!  It made my day!

Denver Zoo Lights

On Saturday we went to Denver Zoo Lights...38 acres of lights!  The boys sang Christmas songs on our drive.  

The boys singing Christmas songs together may be my favorite part of the season this year.  When Ethan was 2, he could sing the tune of any song perfectly, even when we couldn't understand the words.  Let's just say it is the complete opposite for little Caden.  He can say all the words, but every song is sung in the same one low note.  It is too funny!  So for your listening pleasure I present Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer:
It really was a fun family activity.  I fed and changed Quinn when we first got there and then bundled him up in his little brown bear suit, and several blankets...he just snoozed away toasty and warm the whole time we were there.

Ethan in his dog hat waiting to smack the pinata.

 The carousel was probably the boys favorite part of the night and also the craziest part of the night!  We were first in line for the next ride so I sat there talking to the boys about which animals they wanted to ride.  They decided on the 2 polar bears that were next to each other.  There were two 13 year old girls right behind us clearly listening to our conversation, they knew the boys were going to run for the polar bears as soon as they gave the guy their tokens.  We were literally within 2 feet of the polar bears when the 2 teen girls pushed the boys out of the way and jumped on the polar bears.  I couldn't believe it!  Both boys started to mourn their polar bears, so I quickly put them on the dolphin and elephant in front of the polar bears and acted like it was no big deal.  Then I turned around to give the girls a "what the heck" look and they were totally smirking and whispering snooty little things.  I just ignored them, but I'm hoping they get a lump of coal in their stockings this year.  

The best part of the whole night may have been when we left the zoo hungry and cold and made it to Cafe Rio in 6 minutes.  The one mishap happened on the way home when we were driving along the highway and Ethan started yelling that he was really going to have a "wipeout."  We were laughing wondering what a "wipeout" was until he informed us a "wipeout" is when you wet your pants.  So we pulled over, and almost made it home without a "wipeout."

One Month

Already one month old!  

In one month Quinn has gone from the baby burrito, to the chimichanga...and now we think he is the whole enchilada when he is swaddled!  He seems to grow and change everyday.

Everyday his eyes are becoming more and more blue.

We sure love, love, love to snuggle this little buddy!

I call this pose his signature move.  He loves to have one hand across his chest, and one arm up by his ear.  

He sleeps best in our bed snuggled right up by his mom.  In the mornings after Clark has gone to work I try to scoot away from him a little, he somehow keeps scooting closer and closer to me until I almost fall off of the bed.

He's been having some fussy times while his little stomach is trying to figure things out.  His night lately has been starting at 1:30 AM, so I have watched more Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies while trying to rock him to sleep than I would like to admit!

It has been a great first month.