Christmas

This year was Christmas with the Chadwick Clan, and my parents were good enough to come down to Utah for the holiday. They stayed at Chelsea's house for two nights, and then spent Christmas Eve and Christmas night at our house. I was so grateful they came down here since I was nervous about being so far away from my doctor at this stage in the game. 

Here's Michael prepping for their arrival. He INSISTED on vacuuming his room and the hallway. He's actually getting better. 

 On Saturday, December 22, we had Christmas with Nana and Papa before they headed to Georgia and Tennessee to spend Christmas with the Dark side of the family. As per tradition, Michael got a new book and a new pillow case with monkeys on it. He loves his new book!

 Papa opening our present:

 Nana also made Michael a bag for his cars. Nana and Papa gave him new cars to go in his new bag. Here's Nana showing Michael how to open his bag:

 On Christmas Eve, we got tons of snow, so not too long after Taryn and David made it to our house, David helped Michael build a snowman, as well as shovel the walk. Thanks, David! You are awesome. Too bad we didn't get those leaves raked before it snowed.

 Taryn and David also stayed the night on Christmas Eve. By the time they added their presents to our presents, and then my parents showed up with all their presents, we had a lot of presents under that tree! It was quite impressive. Here's the front:

 And here's the other side:

 My dad wins a gold star for this year. He had his knee replaced on December 13, and he worked hard at physical therapy and then braved the drive while not feeling very well. He spent most of his time in our $10 La-Z-Boy, but we were so happy to have him. He read lots of books to Michael, and Michael spent tons of time chilling in the chair with him. Hope you feel better soon, Dad!

I woke up at 6:40 a.m. on Christmas morning, and I could not fall back to sleep to save my life. I keep wondering when the I'm-so-excited-I-can't-sleep syndrome will go away. Apparently not this year! Brian and I were laying in bed, waiting for Michael's door to open and the pitter-patter of his feet to sound in the other room. At least this year, we didn't wake him up! He finally woke up between 7:30 and 8.

 Michael was so excited about all of his presents. Here he is opening Clifford books from Santa. He LOVES Clifford!

 This year, I decided to make my parents a new quilt for their bed. I was doing pretty well timing it so I wasn't overly stressed out, and then I got an ear infection that wiped me out for a week--yeah, the one right before Christmas. Thankfully, I didn't have to pull an all-nighter, but I barely finished it before my folks got here. I was so excited for them to open the present and to surprise my mom. Then, right as she was opening the package, Michael says, "Oh, she's opening the quilt!" Oh well. He's been pretty good about NOT spilling beans on everything else. I guess we'll forgive him for this one slip-up. I made her matching shams for her birthday present.

 Here's David and Brian trying to put Michael's big Santa present together. You can see Michael right behind Brian's head, carefully supervising the project.

 Around Noon-thirty, Chelsea and her kids arrived, followed shortly thereafter by McCallan. We got to Skype with our favorite missionary. I can't believe that he'll be home in August!

After talking to Ethan, we opened more presents, ate yummy food, and hung out for a little before Cal, Chelsea's crew, and Taryn and David hit the road. Then, we spent a quiet evening with my folks, and headed for bed. The next day, the weather ALMOST delayed my parents' departure, but after hashbrowns, eggs, and bacon from our own pig (thanks mom and dad for delivering it to us!), they headed home.

Thanks everyone for a wonderful Christmas! We missed you Em, Pete, Jack, Wyatt, and Jess. We hope everyone else had a great Christmas as well. 

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas!

The Sunday after Thanksgiving, we decorated for Christmas:

I grew up with an awesome advent calendar where each day in December, we got to pin a felt ornament on a felt Christmas tree. I loved it! So, I've wanted one of my own for a while. Several years ago, my mom found one similar to the one we had growing up, except that it was a nativity one. So last year, I started trying to figure out how to make one. It didn't happen. But this year, I finally put my thoughts into actions and finished it by the 1st so Michael could start counting down to Christmas. Here it is:

I painted a nativity scene using watercolors. I did watercolors so Michael could paint with me at the same time. It turned out better in my head, but it was an inspired decision in the eternal scheme of things, so I'm just going to be satisfied with all the imperfections. Anyway, I mounted my watercolor on a tin serving dish (couldn't find a plane sheet of metal), and Mod Podged it on. Then I made the calendar part out of fabric and put the tray in the pocket things on the top and hot glued it in. I painted numbers with puff paint, lamenting the entire time that I couldn't find pre-cut numbers to use.

And I filled the pockets with the little figures I made using wooden beads, leftover fabric and ribbon, and a ton of hot glue:

Each figure has a magnet on the back. I made a manger that goes in spot Number 1. It has a magnet on front so that the baby Jesus can sit there when he arrives on the 24th.

The animals were tricky. I'm not that good with fabric, hot glue, and wooden beads. So, when I found foam animal stickers at Michael's, I figured that would have to work. The pack I bought came with horses, cows, pigs, and chickens. The horses were far too cheesy to use, and the chickens were border-line (you can see one above), but the cows and pigs weren't too bad. I put the foam stickers on felt and tried to embellish them a little to get them to kind of match. I was about to work on the pigs when it hit me that I couldn't use them. This was a Jewish family before the Law of Moses was fulfilled, and so they would never have stayed in a stable with pigs! Unclean! So, I did the best with the chickens and cows. Thankfully, I could make tons of sheep using cotton-balls, feet from the foam animals, and black wooden beads! So far, Michael has been loving it, and when I see the many imperfections, I remind myself that my kids won't see the imperfections. Hopefully, all they will see is a wonderful, cherished family tradition that their mom made just for them. 

I've also been frantically working on Christmas projects. I want to stay busy so that I don't have time to dwell when I'm not feeling well. So far, it is working. And I'm panicking a little by how fast December is going. I think I'll make it and finish by the 21st, but I'm still worried and sewing like mad nearly every day. 

Last week, we did a day of working on Michael's Christmas projects. He painted, and I supervised, so I was able to take care of a lot of little things that have been ignored during my sewing frenzy, and he got a day of lots of Mommy attention. We went to the store and he picked some stuff out to work on as well as some paint, and then we came home and he painted for 4 hours! I taped off areas so that it would still look good, which is why it took so long, but he actually did most of the painting. I really did very little.  

 These two pictures have been censored so no one gets and early peak at their present from Michael!

And here's our traditional picture in front of the tree for our 2012 ornament. Next year, we hope to have four of us in this picture!

 And yesterday, we all made sugar cookies together. Michael had no qualms about almost literally diving into the fun:

Here's hoping you all are enjoying a wonderful December!