OuR cHriStMas!

Hello everyone, hope you all had a wonderful Christmas day!

Here is how our day/week went in a nut shell....

It all started on the Saturday before Christmas. I noticed that little miss Sydney wasn't feeling her best. She had gotten a cold. Her little nose was running and she had a slight cough. We had plans to celebrate Christmas with Braden's dad and stepmother as well as Braden's brother and sister-in-law the following night (Sunday). We normally do this on Christmas eve but because Braden's brother is a nurse he was going to be on call that night so we decided to celebrate early. I have started the tradition of cooking a dinner and we eat by candlelight. This was so fun last year and so we thought we should start doing it every year. The dinner went great and we opened lots of gifts. Sydney still wasn't feeling great but was a little trooper none the less.

The next few days Sydney seemed to get worse so I decided to take her to the doctor on Tuesday. Turns out she had RSV. All we could do was watch her close and make sure her breathing was okay. They told us to cancel plans and stay home...

What a bummer. So we called everyone that was planning on coming over on Christmas and told them they should probably stay away but it was up to them if they would like to join us for breakfast.

Christmas Eve rolled around and it seemed like later in the day Sydney felt so much better! Her nose had started to dry up and she was back to her normal smiley self. I decided not to call everyone back on the off chance she was still contagious. (Thanks mom for all your prayers).

On Christmas day it started to snow and snow hard. My parents decided to go ahead and join us for breakfast and it was so fun just to stay in and enjoy the morning. Sydney still seemed to be feeling pretty well.

Later in the day we went to my brothers house for dinner and opening of gifts. It was a lot of fun. The snow really started to come down and by the time the night was over we got about a foot of snow. I love a white Christmas!

Here are a few pictures of our fun filled Christmas.

This is a picture of a mom we helped out this year for Christmas. She has two small boys.

Our pre-Christmas Eve dinner and gifts.

Miss Sydney playing on Christmas Eve.
Tyler making sure Syd's heart sounds good.
Christmas Eve jammies!
Christmas morning!
Sydney with her Corona.... Just kidding. Don't freak out, it's just an empty bottle.
Un-wrapping gifts at my brothers.
Sydney with my dad. I think this picture is so cute!

Tyler's first gingerbread house

We decided to breakout the gingerbread house I bought on black Friday. Braden and I had never made one before so this was a new thing for all of us. Tyler was all about the candy and getting his hands on it. I whipped up the frosting and got all the candy divided into little bowls. Once Braden and I got the walls stuck together I started to frost the roof. The instructions said to let the house dry for 24 hours before proceeding to frost but we didn't have this much time nor did Tyler have the patience. After the roof was looking like it had freshly snowed it was time for Mrs. Sydney to go to bed. So off we went. Once I returned Braden and Ty had FINISHED IT!! It actually turned out pretty cute. Here is the finished product.

Daddy's side
Tyler's side
The Back

And just one I thought was cute!

Tree cutting time!

Every year we venture out to cut our own Christmas tree. This has become a really fun tradition that I think our kids will grow to love. Tyler already loves it... and wants to go again right now. We usually head out the weekend after Thanksgiving and go over by Fish Lake area. This year the day that worked best for everyone was Sunday. We arrived in Salina where we buy our permits and the gas station that sells them was closed... What to do now...

We ended up walking next store to the other gas station and she recommended calling the Walmart in Richfield, another town about 20 min. away. I did and they had me call someone else who ended up having some permits. Once we got them we started up the mountain. The day was sunny here in SLC and once we got on the mountain it got cloudier and cloudier. We quickly hit snow that blanketed the road. We were so surprised. Last year we were able to get all the way to the top and there was hardly any snow and we thought this year would be the same.. boy were we wrong.

We didn't make it very far before we got stuck and had to back up. Everyone decided that this was far enough and this is were we would have to find our tree. It was so cold and windy that day so Sydney and I stayed in the truck while the boys went out to cut our tree.

They soon appeared on the road with our beautiful tree. After the tree was placed in the truck it was time for some sledding. This is also a tradition. This is Tyler's favorite part. They spent quite a while sledding down the road. Tyler is getting big enough that he was able to hike up the road and sled back down without help from dad. It was soon getting late and we needed to head back home. We stopped at the Cracker Barrel for some dinner.. Mmmm good. It was a fabulous day.