Christmas Post

Our three foot tall Christmas tree all ready for Santa to come visit on Christmas Eve. For some reason the bottom half of the lights hadn't been working all season, then they turned on that evening. It was our own little Christmas miracle. We can't wait to get a real tree some year when we have a bit more space.

So, for Christmas this year, I was able to get three days off in a row! It's only the second Christmas day that I've had off since I turned 18. That made it extra fun and special. On Christmas Eve, I spent the morning at the gym and got a good work-out in. After naps in the afternoon, we drove up to Aunt Laura and Uncle Dude's house for a fun family party. Almost everyone was there from my side of the family. Gwen had lots of fun playing with her cousins and we got to eat a yummy ham dinner together. Jonathan and I got a really neat book that my sister Laura put together of our wedding pictures. We have the best wedding pictures but I hadn't really done anything with them and now I don't have to because she did it for us.

On Christmas morning, we couldn't wait for Gwen to get up and finally got her up at 8:30 to open presents. She got some stuffed Muppet babies and some pretend food. Jonathan and I gave each other lots of movies and video games. It was funny because all our gifts were DVD shaped. After opening our presents, we drove in the snow over to my parent's house - yay that they only live 10 minutes away, and made brunch for everyone there. Gwen opened a remote control My Little Pony toy from Grandma and Grandpa and chased the dogs around with it until my sister Heidi and her family came over. We left a few hours later and came home for much needed naps. Jonathan made us a ham dinner and we watched Prince Caspian together and stayed up late. Too bad the only part of the movie that Gwen payed attention to was the big scary battle at the end. I think it gave her nightmares because she woke up crying a couple times in the night and she's had a hard time sleeping since then. I guess we have to be more careful about watching movies at night with her now.

A few days later, the snow finally cleared enough for Jonathan's mom and step-dad to make the trip down from Preston. Still, the normally 2-3 hour drive took them 5 hours. They're so much braver than me. I'd never make that trip in anything but perfect weather. Grandma Elsie gave Gwen a little pretend kitchen to go with her pretend food and it is by far her favorite gift this year. She makes us meals and snacks on it constantly and hides things in it like Hershey's Kisses that she's not supposed to have. We went to lunch that afternoon with Elsie and Floyd and Jonathan's brother Sam and his family. It's always fun to spend time with them and Gwen loves her big cousin Charlotte. It was a fun holiday this year and the best part was that I got to spend so much time with my little girl who is starting to figure out what Christmas is about.
Gwen and her Great-Grandpa Madsen. He just turned 95 this fall.
Samantha, Noah, Kim, and Gwen playing in Noah's room on his big soft bean bag chair. You could fit 2 adults or 25 small children on there.Sam, Kim, and Noah looking so loving and quiet together. This was not always the case during the night though as you can imagine with 6 wound-up kids in the same house.The girls (except Jami who was downstairs). They pushed poor little Noah off his own chair and exerted their "girl power" for this picture. Trust me, he was pouting just off to the side.Mason spent the entire evening watching the Santa tracker on the computer. He'd alert the rest of us each time Santa moved a little closer to Utah.