Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is full of tradition in my family. Every year, after the Christmas Eve service, we go back to my parent's house and get dinner ready. We always have to have the same exact thing every year: shrimp cocktail, steak, twice baked potatoes, broccoli rice casserole, rolls, and a happy birthday Jesus cake for dessert, all eaten in te formal dining room around candle light.

 

Well, things got a little crazy this year...

 

About a week ago, both of my parents came down with the flu. My dad got better pretty quickly, but my mom also had a sinus infection along with it and her illness lingered forever! We thought she would definitely be better for Christmas Eve, but about 2 hours before Michael, Bryson and I were going to leave for Christmas Eve service, my mom called saying her fever came back and we couldn't do it at their house. It was going to be at our house instead! We had an hour and a half to make our home "christmas eve worthy" all the while getting ready for church. Thankfully, B was napping so we could run around like crazy cleaning and getting things and set up!

 

We tried to wake up Bryson from his nap, but he was NOT having it. After a while, Michael just carried him to the car and we were going to change him in the parking lot. See... NOT a happy camper!! :(

 

Fortunately, he perked up when we told him we would get to sing "Away in a manger" at church in a few minutes. I kid you not, he/we have sung that song over 3,000 times in the last couple weeks.

This was his first time in "big church" since last Christmas Eve, so we talked about all the rules we had to obey: sitting in our chair, whispering, etc. He did GREAT!!

He loved getting to go up and listen to the Christmas story of stage with all the kids! Even though there were over a hundred kids up there, he (true to form) ended up squeezing his way all the way up the stairs closer to the book :)

 

He loved standing with Grandma and Papa and "singing" all the other songs, but his favorite things was lighting the candle!

 

There's something so perfect and pure about this picture that I just adore.

 

Afterwards, we went back to our house and met the rest of the family to start getting things ready for dinner. Everyone chipped in and helped. It was so weird not having my mom there; we really missed her. But, Brandon was really great at sending her minute by minute pictures and videos to keep her up to speed :)

 

 

 

 

I had started having some pretty intense pain in my right side (again) but tried to push through it while we were making dinner. I actually had also started timing my Braxton Hicks contractions.

 

We had a lovely and delicious candle lit dinner. :)

 

The pain in my side was so intense and the contractions were coming every 10 minutes, so my dad suggested I go call my doctor. The on call Dr told me the same thing as last time- most likely just muscle pain, so just lay down on a heating pad, drink lots of water and take some Tylenol and if it's not better in an hour, go to the hospital. I was pretty much freaking out on the inside. :/

 

We went ahead and went on with our nightly traditions. We sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, read the Christmas story, sang some songs (Away in a Manger was requested about 8 times! :)) and then opened each others gifts. 

 

 

 

 

 

After an hour or two, I started to feel a little better, but it was still a pretty crazy night! We hated that my mom was at home by herself on Christmas Eve, we missed her like crazy. But, all in all, it was a nice night! Totally not what we expected, but nice non-the-less :)

 

Then, off to bed to wait for Santa to come!!

Merry Christmas Eve!!

 

Week 3&4- Noah and the Rainbow

We doubled up for this theme, so we got to spend 2 weeks with Noah, animals, and the rainbow/colors. It was so much fun!!

Our scripture for the week was Genesis 9:16 "God always keeps his promises."

We read the story of Noah every morning.

{Mimi even read it to him one day. What a treat! Bryson called Noah "no no" the whole first week-- complete with the finger shake. :) }

We made animal cookies.

{He LOVED wearing his apron and rolling the dough. He asks to wear the "ah pie" whn he sees it hanging in the pantry. I will definitely be pulling out some playdoh soon. :)}

 

We mixed colors using coolwhip

{My friend Jenny did this with her son last year and I loved her idea! I think Bryson liked rubbing it all over himself more than mixing or eating it. Such a boy :) We also used some of it for icing for the cookies. }

 

We drew a rainbow and an arc with chalk

We played in the "rain" and stayed dry with an umbrella

{I think it's rained like 4 days total since Bryson has been born (that may be an exaggeration. or it may not. I don't really remember!) but he got to learn what an umbrella was and why you use it. It's always neat to see him learn something new}

 

We ate lots of Animal Crackers

Went to a Safari Park

And ended our week(s) with dinner at the Rainforest Cafe

This is pretty much a whole post of it's own. Man oh man, Michael and I laughed a lot!! The restaurant has robotic life-like animals all over the walls and every 10 minutes they "come to life". Bryson never cried, but was scared out of his poor little mind the first 6 times they came on. He litterally climbed up me and held on for dear life with a look of complete terror. Michael and I probably looked like crazy people because we were dancing and making silly noises while the animals were "alive" so Bryson would think it was ok and not be scared anymore. He kept vigorously telling them "all done" and "nigh nigh" to make them stop. He never really enjoyed the live animals, but towards the end, he actually started to do monkey and elephant motions along with us. He did, however, love the fish tanks all over the restaurant. Nice, calm, noise-less, motion-less fish enclosed in the glass walls. :) We will definitely be going back...but maybe next year or so! Ha! :) 

(sadly, my camera battery died about 10 minutes into eating, so we were stuck with phone pictures. SO sad)

How to Crack a Coconut in Cozumel

Step 1: Jump really high and pull down a coconut

Step 2: Take pictures because you're thrilled that you actually got one of those suckers down!

Step 3: Bang it on the corner of bricks and concrete over and over and over..

Step 4: Feel a little relief that all the banging might actually be working when you see the actual coconut

Step 5: Success!! Drink the fruits coconut milk of your the boys' hard labor

Step 6: Clean up the mess

It was really fun to watch the boys crack open the cocnut. In the 45+ minutes we were standing there watching them (even with my attempt to stand in the shade of a tiny pole) I got so burned!!

At least the boys can say they have cracked a cocnut with their own two hands!! :)