We were sad that we weren't able to go home for Christmas this year. We had been planning on it initially but as it got closer to the time we needed to buy tickets, we realized it just was not in our best interest this year. It was a hard decision, but having done it and recognizing how I've been feeling, I know that it was the right one. We sure missed all of our family on the East coast though! Hopefully this is the last Christmas that we have to be away.
A little before Christmas, we had a church ward Christmas party. It was fun, but we didn't get to stay for a very long time since Jimmie was tired and ready for bed. He did love that the table coverings were set up to be colored on. And Mommy and Jimmie really liked the little bowls of chocolate candies. Maybe a little too much...
We were able to get in one more day at the park before it got too cold. Well, it was still actually pretty cold, but Jimmie doesn't care. If I'm feeling overly patient, sometimes we'll still brave it. This boy just loves it outside and wouldn't care if it was -10 degrees. He just wants to play!
And this kid..in case you can't tell… REALLY loves to swing!
This year for Christmas we decided to send just some little gifts to some family members. I'd been meaning to make some magnets for a little while now, and figured it'd be a fun DIY project to tackle.
These are a few that we kept for ourselves.
For Christmas Eve, I made a lasagna, some rolls, and just had salad. Pretty simple, but pretty traditional for my family :) Jimmie went to bed at a reasonable time and thankfully I'd been on the ball enough for the previous week that I'd finished all Christmas prep (aka wrapping presents) ahead of time. We had planned on watching a Christmas movie together after dinner but I totally crashed about 15 minutes after Jimmie… so I went to bed at 7:15. So Christmas Eve was a little uneventful, but quite enjoyable for me :)
Our little half decorated Christmas tree (due to someone's particular interest in smashing ornaments on the tile ;) )
Turns out that was a good thing since Jimmie woke up at 5:15 am and decided he was UP for the day. Woohoo! He must have actually just been hungry (he hadn't eaten very much for dinner) because instead of opening presents or seeing his stocking, he just wanted to eat.
So we had a little mini-breakfast before getting started on the Christmas activities. Gotta love some last minute cheerios and bananas to hold you over.
Jimmie thought the stockings were pretty exciting! Except he kept trying to give all of his gifts to us. What a nice boy.
Sometimes he needed a little assistance opening presents
But for the most part, he nailed that part of Christmas. It took a while to open everything though
Because of course, he wanted to play with each thing for 15 minutes before moving on :)
Jimmie was pretty spoiled this year with lots of great presents from awesome family
We learned pretty quickly that anything with lots of (more than like 3) pieces, would just have to wait until later to be opened and played with :)
Probably the MVP Christmas present this year for this kid is his Sit n Spin. He LOVES this thing. It didn't take more than 1 minute of Daddy spinning him for Jimmie to figure out how to do it on his own. After opening every present he had to bring it back to the Sit n Spin to play with the toy while spinning.
He loved everything that he got, but this thing could not be beat.
One extra cool surprise is that it ended up being a White Christmas in Utah! This was our first official snow fall where the snow actually stuck and coated everything. We've had flurries and dustings, but nothing this significant. This is how we found it Christmas morning. It started snowing again around noon and continued through the entire day. Very pretty and pretty special.
We were especially excited because Jimmie has never played in the snow before!
How cool!
Also convenient that he had opened snow pants and a hat & glove set just that morning for Christmas. Extra nice because we only had snow boots and a coat :) we were all set!!
So we took a break from opening presents for a bit to go play outside.
I taught him about snowballs. He thought that was pretty funny!
The snow was wet enough for a snowball but not quite good enough for a snowman. Maybe next time
"MOM!! THIS IS SO FUN!!"
After snow time, Daddy fell asleep on the couch and Jimmie decided that was not acceptable.
So he decided to wake him up by plugging his nose. HA! I promise there was no coaching involved here. This kid is a prankster.
More spinning. All day, everyday. Seriously he will do this by himself for about 20 minutes at a time.
Of course, he still loves to look out the window. He especially loved to look out at the fact that there was white stuff falling from the sky.
Mid-day snow fall
Bowling… Jimmie style :)
Beep, beep! Coming through!
Doing some spelling on the fridge...
His little baby moccasins from Grandma Foulk totally make me smile :) He would come over and beg for me to put them back on any time they fell off or we took them off for the snow etc. He thinks they're pretty great!
Stealing one of my Christmas presents. This kid is a water addict (I'll take it!) He will take my 32oz water bottle and down a third of it all at once.
We (Jim and I) were pretty tired by the day's end. Jimmie was still pretty wired and we had a difficult time getting him to sleep. Of course, once he was asleep, he proceeded to wake up about 6 more times and refuse to get back in bed for quite some time. He's a pretty silly boy :)
The next day was filled with more snow time!
He refused to take a nap until we'd gone out and played in the snow.
Of course, I caved. How can you resist that face?!
Post-face planting in the snow.
He seriously will sit here for the longest stretches of time, just watching outside. Kinda breaks my heart because I'd love to let him be outside all the time, but it's just too cold for that.
He has also learned how to say "car". I realized that's what he's saying when we were out playing in the snow and walking around the apartments. Every time we'd make a full lap and end up back in the front but the parking lot, Jimmie would yell "CAR!" as we rounded the corner. It's pretty cute.
So now he sits at the window and points to all of the cars and telling me about them.
Before church today, we thought we'd take a few photos since we didn't really take any pictures at Christmas together. Here's a fun one of me and Jimmie.
I've also been pretty bad at documenting this pregnancy with weekly belly shots. So here are a few of baby Lorelei at 32 weeks + 5 days.
Just over 7 weeks to go!
We have another ultrasound tomorrow. Very excited to see this little girl again!
