December and Christmas

The first week of December we went upto visit Mom Gamble at her condo in Phoenix for a few days. We went to see teh temple lights, but I of course forgot my camera at home. Alianna did not seem to interested while riding in her stroller, which surprised me becuase she loves "preedy lights" but as soo as we got her out in the parking lot she grabbed Mom's hand, said "cmon grammie" and ran back to the lights( which were across the street, another parking lot and on the complete other side of the temple from were we parked) and had a ball walking around up close and personal to the lights. The next night we went to the Phoenix Zoo lights which were amazing but ALianna did not appreciate that the "anmaols" were not out. I think her favortie part was the "round and round" ( carousel) , although since she did it like 12 times in a row at Disneyland, she does not understand why she can't do that on all the carousels.

The second week of December brought my cookie exchange, which was a blast. Again, no pics but I think I counted about 20 women in all and the cool thing was everyone made different cookies( I would have thought we'd have repeats) so we all got a good variety to take home!

The third week of December brought our friends the Mowers to stay with us and our anniversary. Needless to say, that was a fun and crazy week.

Finally the week of Christmas arrived. The Gamble's did their Christmas on the 23rd. We had our traditional "fancy" dinner which isnt quite so classy now that the kids are all there, but still super yummy food(ie Prime Rib). Then we exchanged gifts and acted out Luke 2 complete with costumes. Again no pics because the kids were being CRAZY! I think it's safe to say it wasn't the most spiritual Luke 2 reading, maybe next year Mom!

Poor ArJay had teo work swing shift ( 4pm -2 am) Christmas Eve, Christmas day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's day. OBviously, our holidays were a little strange this year. My parents arrived Christmas Eve at about 5pm( ArJay was already gone) and we had an appetizer feast and did the traditional " it's a wonderful life" viewing.

We were expecting ArJay back at about 4-5am and were planning to just let him sleep( for work again that night) and open presents when he woke up at like 10. But I woke up at 6:30 and he was not home yet. I called him and he said he was on his way, it was apparently a crazy night. I believe his exact words were " the world went to heck in a hand basket last night and I was left holding the hand basket". So I woke everyone up and we did presents as soon as he got home at 7 instead.
You probably can't see him, but the whole morning the poor guy was zoning out.
Alianna was hilarious opening presents and became enthralled by the funniest things. Here she is staring at her toothbrush from the stocking. She opened that Minnie first and it probably should have been last because she would NOT put it down. She opened everything one handed as she held it.
Baby Kendall even got presents from both sets of grandparents. Geez the kid is spoiled and he isn't even out of the womb yet! Note: again with the Minnie. At the time I was a little sad because I went thru A LOT of work making a whole flannel board set for her that she didn't even glance at. The next day at church she loved the flannel board stories though so I guess my pride is still intact :)
Grandma Gamble and Weir both got her princess tea sets. I can not tell you how many tea parties we have had since then.
ArJay calls this Alianna's "entourage" who have to come with her everywhere. The entourage grew this Christmas. We already had Mickey and Belle, but Grammie Weir added Minnie and Grammie Gamble added Cinderella. Christmas night we went to Winterhaven which was lots of fun.
By the end of the weekend we were so exhausted that this is the most excitement Mitch and I could muster. I think there is something wrong with us since my parents were still running around having a blast with Alianna, I'm gonna blame it on being 7 months pregnant...yeah we'll go with that.