Sunday, January 5, 2014

Christmas 2013

We had such a wonderful and fun holiday season this year. We started out by getting to see our dear Aunt "Caca," who has been in Hungary for the last year and a half serving a mission! I missed her so much and finally reuniting with her, after a 18 months of communication via email only, was possibly the best part of our Christmas!

Not only did we get to see our sweet Caca, we also met up with one of my dearest and best friends in the entire world who I haven't seen in over 2 years, which is just wrong! I can't even tell you what an amazing person and friend this lovely lady is! Not only did it feel like nothing had changed in the 2 1/2 years since we have seen each other, except for the fact we had 2 babies added to the mix, the kids also seemed to just pick up where they left off and had a grand time seeing the temple's Christmas lights up in Salt Lake City. Best part, I didn't even get in a fight at the temple this time (long story)! Woot woot!

Finally, our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were just as great as the rest. We got to spend it with all my siblings, minus Sam, their wonderful spouses, my parents, our Mike (just for Christmas Eve), and my almost niece, who I am dying to spoil and can't wait for her to get here, all while wearing matching pajamas! I am one lucky aunty because I actually have 2 nieces and a nephew on the way, all due within a few weeks of each other!
18 months later and just as beautiful as ever!

Our traditional Puerto Rican Christmas feast. My mom worked so hard on it! The food turned out AMAZING. After dinner, I think my belly could have given Santa's a run for his money!
I have an unnatural phobia of adult feet. Just the word makes me want to go rinse my mouth out with mouth wash! When it comes to little baby and toddler feet, well, that's another story. I can't get enough of those little piggies!
Baby Quinny didn't care too terribly much about Christmas He mostly wanted to open boxes and eat the candy out of his stocking! He probably ate his weight in candy on Christmas morning!
Doesn't she just look thrilled? And yes....those are feather extensions in my mama bear's hair; the ribbon was just for the festivities!

This amazing little sucker was an orange we found hiding in a stocking from last Christmas. I think we are going to save it and make it a part of our Christmas tradition!
In the background playing on the tv is my most favorite Christmas movie ever! Scrooge, starring Albert Finney. I could never get sick of this show. It's moving and heart warming and captures the whole meaning of Christmas in song and dance!
Grant was so excited over the legos Carter picked out for him as a Christmas gift!


Saturday, December 14, 2013

A hunting we will go!


So this year for the Christmas season a few totally genius ideas started rolling around in my brain: Idea A- go cut down our own Christmas tree out in the forest. We weren't going to do the little Christmas tree farm fake experience, either. We were going to go drive up to the Uncompaghre National Forest and get our dang tree, all wilderness family style. Idea 2- Finally get family Christmas pictures taken, and I would do it myself. I've got a great camera, after all, and a tripod! What more could I need? Sadly, we have never had an actual professional family picture done, EVER! Unfortunately, for my ideas, I decided to try and do both at the same time! Ugh! We got up the mountain all dressed up in our fancy get-ups and I soon realized after slipping and falling on my face in the snow how horrible of an idea this was.

We started on our little journey later in the afternoon than we had hoped for; on the way there, all the boys fell asleep! Fail one! They were going to be so grumpy when I woke them up to get out of the truck and jump into the freezing cold snow to take some pictures!

Fail #2 happened soon after finding "the spot," which ended up not really being worth anything. About 5 minutes of being up there, I fell on my face in the snow, the boys fell like ten times, and Nathan was the only one in good enough shoes to actually get some traction and get up the hill to find a tree. That's okay. We had fun playing around in the snow waiting for him to try and find something useable! 
"Mom! My hands are soooo cold!" Yeah, Fail #3. I did not bring gloves for my children!
Dad, I need a tissue!
He's got the eye (Alicia H. This is for you!)
It was foggy and amazing up on the mountain!
Nathan found a couple little trees which we decided to use in the planters on the front porch, but unfortunately, those were all we could find. After about 20 more minutes at another attempt of trying to hike in our fancy pants, the kids were quickly got all fun-ed out and we decided to try our luck at another spot. We ended up driving for another hour or so trying to find a place that looked promising!
We found one spot that looked hopeful, but of course, it was not! So, we decided to give up and go get a Christmas tree the sane people way!
BAM! Thank you Lowes for making me eat my words and thanks for the 9 foot Christmas tree that sits crookedly in our living room! Overall, I'd consider our afternoon adventure a success!

And as for the Christmas pictures, well, we tried!