Sunday evening we made gingerbread houses.  Allison had won a preassembled gingerbread house at school and the rest of us made do with graham crackers.  Taylor was cheerleader and Jeremy was photographer.  Spencer really didn't want to participate...and then we started using all his candy.  So he decided to make a hobbit house in self defense.

Christmas vacation started off with a bang with Spencer getting his wisdom teeth out early Monday morning.  I was hoping for some great video as he came out of sedation but all I got was, "Spencer, what girls do you think are cute?", "Never going to tell you Mom, not going to happen".  The next few days were full of pain pills, chipmunk cheeks, TV binging and some grumpiness.  He was very sad not to be able to eat nachos for Christmas Eve but made do with tortillas.

We spent the week getting ready for Christmas.  All the girls got their hair done.  The house got cleaned up.  We watched a Star Wars episode every night and laughed in all the wrong places to get prepared to see the new Star Wars this week.  Don't ask Robyn about this.  The three old movies are PG and she loved watching them with us.  The new Star Wars is PG-13, she is not happy about staying home for that.  Allison worked on a sewing project to hold her personal progress book and I worked on a scripture bag that she asked for, for Christmas.  We went to Petsmart to buy pets Christmas presents and Jasper would not stop watching his stocking from that point on, eager for his new squeaky toy.

For Christmas Eve we met up with cousins for sledding, nachos, eating truffles, playing Morphology and watching Elf.  Everyone was cozy in new Christmas PJs and enjoyed time with family.  Sledding was a usual full of fun and laughs and a bunch of tears.  Brynn hit a tree and Jeremy hurt a knee and ankle pretty badly.  For some reason I didn't have on hand a Costco size bottle of ibuprofen.  I now know that is a necessity.


We stayed up watching The Christmas Story and the huge snowfall outside.  Kids prayed hard for snow and we got dumped on, a whole foot in one night.  Christmas Day after stockings, french toast and a leisurely morning of presents we spent two hours outside shoveling.  It was so deep you couldn't push the snow you had to move it a shovelful at a time.  (We decided we need to go get the battery for the quad this week, it would have been very helpful) We all got some good exercise and mostly enjoyed working as a family.  I think I got the easier job of shoveling with kids while Jeremy took kids out after for his part of teaching Spencer how do drive in the snow at the church parking lot!

Then we spent the evening at Jason and Kelly's eating and enjoying time as a family.  I am glad they live so close.  We even got to go cheer on Garion playing soccer Saturday.  Then Jeremy spent the afternoon assembling Robyn's new desk with the girls.  Spencer had to work and Jeremy took the girls out to dinner and then me out to see The Martian.

It was an awesome week.  Very laidback and relaxing and full of family and just hanging out.