Joy: Christmas Condensed

I hate when I don't blog for a little while and then I feel like I'm so far behind that I can't get caught up which makes me procrastinate even more. It's not all my fault though, our computer died the week before Christmas - which was perfect timing because doesn't everyone want to drop a few hundred dollars on a new computer at the end of December when they have nothing else to spend money on? We put it off until after Josh got back from his annual trip to Mexico and we are finally back in business.

While I was out of blogging commission, we.... Celebrated Christmas...

We decorated our house and did the normal pre-Christmas activities, like decorating gingerbread cookies

(aka eating frosting).

For Christmas Eve my family came over to our house, ate tamales and went to our church's Christmas Eve service and then came home to open presents. The Christmas eve service is at 6 which is really annoying when you have small kids because by the time it's over and you get home, it almost 8 o'clock and most kids go to bed by then. We gave Claire some "restuarant drink" (soda) to keep her going. That is really smart parenting.

She shared it with her Uncle Buddy and was good to go the rest of the night.

Her gift opening skills have greatly improved this year so that was exciting.

Books are boring to open...

But fun later on. Claire and Bryan were best pals that night after sharing their soda.

The next day we went to Josh's parents and spent the day their. For some reason I only took a few pictures and they all came out really bad. We had a delicious meal, went for a walk and opened gifts. By this time Claire was exhausted and started acting like a weirdo.

The next day, Josh left for Mexico so we headed to my mom's house for week. On Tuesday, Claire got sick and threw up a majority of the day, so all we did was sit with her and watch tv. I had work earlier in the day and got a flat tire on the freeway in the far left lane. My dad and Josh were out of town so I didn't know what to do. Luckily, a super nice, young, guy with a Christian fish on his car, risked his life to change it for me - it was the passenger side and I could only pull to the center of the freeway so cars were whizzing by and were only inches from this poor guy's back. We called the DPS and they eventually came and blocked the lane so that was good.

The next day, Claire was back to normal so we ran errands and what not. Then Thursday, my mom and I both got what Claire had and were out of commission all day. Bryan was home and rose to the occasion to take care of Claire. He even made her chicken tacos for dinner!

Despite the set backs, we had a good time and Claire got some leaf-playing time in before they got mowed up.

Steve and Michelle came over the New Year's Eve. We bought some cheap fireworks and set them off at 8:30ish. It was so cold! Claire was a little stand-offish.