Christmas!

Christmas was awesome this year. Andrew and I were very grateful to have our own place to celebrate Christmas in this year (unlike last year when we were homeless). We spent Christmas Eve very busy (as usual). We started Christmas Eve off with going to my Damewood grandparent's house in Layton. Since Andrew had to work Christmas Eve we arrived in Layton around 3:00. We had a lovely time visiting my Dad's side of the family and we all got some fun presents. We then hurried to Andrew's parent's church where the Hillers werer meeting for their Christmas Eve get together. There we had still some more food and even more presents. James loved being able to run around the gym and play with his cousins! I was excited because I got to choose some pottery items that Andrew's mom had made that are now being proudly displayed in our home (and at Andrew's

desk at work). Thank you Holly! After the Hiller's party we went home and all had a lovely night's rest.

Christmas morning we wound up waking James up so we could do our own personal Christmas morning before we headed off to my parents to join in theirs. James was a little disgruntled at first but when he discovered he could touch the Christmas presents under the tree I had been telling him all season he couldn't he was pretty happy. He really liked the remote control truck he got and his new Little People toys. Andrew was excited with his gun safe and tools (sounds like the lamest Christmas imaginable to me though) and I was so happy to finally have some new and cute clothes and shoes!

Christmas at my parents was fun too. Still more presents, tons of great food, and more people to help me watch James. Although we usually go to Andrew's Hiller grandparent's house Christmas afternoon, Grandma Bonnie decided to cancel due to "bad" weather. When the weather wound up being far worse the day after Christmas when she had her get together she felt really bad. Andrew and I discovered first-hand just how bad the roads were the night of the 26th when we spun out of control on the freeway on our way home from Grandma Bonnie's. We covered all four lanes of traffic and spun around at least 4 or 5 times. Miraculously we didn't hit anything or anyone and were able to drive home moments after our "incident". Boy did it give us a scare though.

PICKLES!

James had his first pickle today. Since my crazy son likes to eat all sorts of things I hate (such as onions slices raw) I figured pickles would be one more thing to add to the list. Well, I was right. He loved them! They did, however, end up being a little more than he expected. He got the cutest bitter pucker! If you look from one picture to the next you can see his sour face form. I feed him pickles all the time now just to see him pucker!