Goodbye 2009!

Well, I must say that the holidays came and went faster than the blink of an eye! We had a wonderful Christmas...Christmas eve was spent at the Cummings' Family, which is an annual tradition that I look forward to every year. We had a great time with all the siblings and nieces and nephews and their little ones. The kids all reinacted the Nativity scene. Gabe talked and prepared for this moment for days ahead! He pre-reserved the role for Joseph and called dibs on his cousin Audrey as Mary. Unfortunately Audrey wasn't able to make it since they went to her Mother's family this year, Gabe wasn't too happy about that to say the least! Lol, Bella took on the role of Mary since she was the only girl there, and baby Graham was Jesus this year. We all did a gift exchange of gift cards and the kids got toys ofcourse...Grandma and Grandpa gave the boys some new sleds, and they decided that the sleds would be fun to use on Grandma's stairs...Grandma didn't like that idea so much, but no one got hurt which I guess is a first with a houseful of rambunctious boys. After the party we hurried home and put the kids to bed to start the preparations for the arrival of santa! I don't know why I saved my wrapping for the last minute, but we were up til' midnight wrapping everything. Or let me rephrase that..."I" was up til' midnight wrapping everything since Aaron seems to think he's exempt from that job! Lol, he hurried and prepped my gifts in a bunch of gift bags...the easier the better I suppose.

Christmas morning came and the kids were filled with excitment and glee. This year we were able to indulge with the gifts, when last year times were hard for us, so it was very enjoyable and exciting to see their little faces light up with excitement. Their absolute favorite gift were legos and some remote controlled helicopters that Aaron had picked out. Bella's was her new baby doll which she kisses and rocks all the time! It's cute seeing a motherly instinct with a one year old, so sweet! My main gift was the best! Aaron competely suprised me this year and got me a new kitchen table! It's a smaller saloon-type table with the tall legs and tall chairs, I was so suprised and excited! He had hidden it in our garage and brought it out last after we were all done opening everything. I've wanted this for a very long time...we have a kitchen table in our front room/dining room area, but not one in our little kitchen, which is where we like to hang out and eat most of the time, and now we can sit down and have family meals on it every day! Anyways, after we had finished opening the gifts we went over to Aaron's parent's house for a gift exchange and breakfast...later on we made another stop to Grandpa Pehrson's house, and then to Lindsay's for some dinner with her inlaws and more gifts...At the end of the day I was lying in bed thinking about how sadit is that it all had come to an end, but also felt some relief that all the holiday spending, parties, food, gifts, decorations, etc. were done with, atleast for another year! It's good that this holiday comes only once a year, I think we'd all be broke with no sanity left! Lol...

New Year's was a fun time for us. We had originally planned on staying home with the kids this year and banging pots and pans. At the last minute Kaden's mother called and offered to watch them for a few hours since she was staying in and wanted some company, so we took her up on the offer and ended up going to a New Year's party at our friends, The McAlisters. It was lots of fun, although sometimes I think I'd rather be home porking out in my sweats and watching movies with the kids...I can't believe 2009 is over, and I have a feeling in my gut that 2010 is going to be a great year for my family with lots of goals to be reached and new accomplishments!

Aaron and I had the opportunity to go up to Park City January 2nd-3rd on an overnight trip with some friends. They had gotten a really nice suite for an awesome deal, and we went with 4 other couples for the night and went to a concert up there. We cooked a big dinner in the kitchen to save money and then we went to the concert...LMFAO is the name of the group that was playing, it's very good dance music but nothing you'd want your mama listening too! The next morning we went and got breakfast and then went and grabbed the kids from my mom's house...the kids had lots of fun going to church with Grandma, Gabe was excited to meet some new kids and wear his new sweater to their church...It was great picking up my little munchkins, even after just one night I had missed them immensely!