Happy Holidays!

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving and you all did too. That whole week was full of festivities which started the weekend before with Jamie (Brennan's Mom) and my sister-in-law Michelle and her girls coming to stay. We celebrated Ava's birthday and Grandma Jamie took the three big kids to our niece, Alexis's play. They loved it and we were impressed and grateful that Grandma managed an hour drive each way and three kids all through a play!

Tuesday night I drove out to see Alexis's last performance. She was amazing. A lot of the kids had good voices, but struggled a little finding the right pitch, not Alexis -- she was dead on the whole time! I was truly impressed and it was fun to get out by myself for an adventure.

Wednesday afternoon I last minute (as always) decided to take advantage of a tip from my aunt about a free dress rehearsal performance of our local professional ballet's Nutcracker. My mom was kind enough to watch the boys and the girls and I had a wonderful time at the ballet. I hadn't seen it for years and the dancing, music and costumes were breathtaking. The girls loved it. (Except at the end there are several solos, and one guy came out after already dancing a solo and then with his partner and I heard Abby say "Ugggh.!" "Do you want to go home, Abby?" I asked. "No, I'm just tired of this guy!")

Wednesday night I went to bed at 9:00 which I NEVER do, but woke up Thursday feeling energetic and refreshed. Much to the girls' chagrin, we cleaned the house. They were totally offended that they would have to work on Thanksgiving, until finally Anna decided if they pretended they were pilgrims they may be able to get through it. We met at my parents' church with most of my Dad's family and had a wonderful feast. We played games and enjoyed having Davis and Chris and Rebecca and Oliver with us.

The rest of the weekend we hung at Mom and Dad's, went out to eat with just adults and then played games at our house, watched the BYU v. Utah game here, attended our new little niece, Molly's baby blessing and gathered for dinner at Mom's Sunday after church. We also got to see my nephew, Oliver, take his first steps last night! So cute.

The festivities ended with a little drama. Yesterday, Nate was jumping on the couch and his foot went down under the cushion and between the seat and the side where a spring broke and gouged the bottom of his foot. I stayed home with Ben and Brennan took him to the doctor and had to hold him down while they gave him a shot to numb his foot and stitch it up. Poor Nate was so upset and was screaming at Brennan to make them stop. Poor sweet Brennan was really shaken and so sad for little Nate. The doctor told him to try and not have Nate walk on his foot for a few days. He is currently missing preschool and watching a movie. He's been a really good sport about crawling around or being carried by Brennan or me. We're so grateful he's not seriously injured and will pray that taking the stitches out will be much less traumatic than putting them in was.