Santa and Stockings

Last year for Christmas, Hailey wanted a pillow pet but I had other ideas and kept forgetting. However, whenever she saw them at the store she kept asking for one. So this year "Santa" gave everyone a pillow pet. *side note: we really don't talk much about Santa. We'll read books with Santa in in and we take the kids to see Santa. Santa brings one unwrapped present and their stockings but still we don't make a big deal out of it. We don't write letters to him (mainly because no one can write and they don't know what they really want) and we don't leave cookies out for him either.

 Rachel has an elephant theme.

 We were lucky to find a Thomas pillow pet which Robert loves.

 Hannah has a teddy bear theme. She has Bear that she sleeps with already, so this big one we are naming Teddy.

 Hailey likes Pinkalicious and she's has a yellow unicorn named Goldie so this is Hailey's unicorn that she named Goldie.

 Nathan gave me the Forgotten Carols CD in my stocking.

 I forgot to order Nathan's stocking stuffer on time for Christmas but I did eventually get him the "Love and Logic Marriage" book he was interested in.

 I kept all the presents hidden until Christmas morning because I was afraid Hannah would start opening them early. So here's how the tree looked when the kids woke up. Notice that all the ornaments are at the top.  The kids originally put them on all that the bottom but if one fell or was fought over, I put it up high.

I didn't get to bed until midnight then Rachel woke up around 3:00am and was just awake until almost 5:00am during that time, I started to put together Gramma Cherie's Christmas present to the kids. So when it was finally 7:00am and the kids were waking up, I wasn't very functional and didn't want to get up. However, when I heard them talking about  Christmas, I jumped out of bed so I wouldn't miss their reactions and picture taking opportunities.

 In Robert and Hannah's stocking I put them impression thingies that I found at Walmart. It was a big hit.

 Yeah! matching outfits with the girls.

Rachel blew out of her outfit and then slept through Christmas morning.

After Santa presents and stockings, I quickly made a big breakfast with cinnamon rolls, orange rolls, eggs, sausage, bacon, orange juice and eggnog. I was very hungry at that point.

Christmas Pjammies

I made a lot of homemade gifts and spent a lot of money in general on Christmas, so when it came to Christmas eve pjs, I was just going to skip it. I thought about making them and already had all the patterns but didn't really like any of the Christmas flannel fabric. Then going from my fabric drawer to have scraps to make beanbags, I saw this pretty white and pink flowery flannel that I've had since Hailey was a baby but never knew what to do with it. So in 7 days I made 6 pairs of pjammies and stenciled 6 white t-shirts.

 Rachel's was the easiest pjs to do.

 Robert loves trains.

 I had to find matching fabric for mine, and at the time we opened our presents, Nathan and my pjs were not hemmed or had a finished waist on them.

 I accidentally dropped the train cookie cutter on Nathan's shirt as I was setting it up but I had no way of fixing it on Christmas eve.

I'm glad I did the pjs, it made Christmas special, and I like sewing. However, I made Hailey's too short, and the waist band on Robert's, Nathan's, and mine is too big. I prefer doing baby clothes verses adult sizes. Most likely I will do this all again next year but hopefully I will start it earlier then the week of Christmas.

Nativity Play on Christmas Eve

I was talking to my mom the week of Christmas about how I want to redo our Christmas song book and add pictures to it. I was thinking of using the nativity pictures that the whole family put on a couple of years ago. While she mentioned that I should have the kids dress up and do the nativity scene. I've been thinking about it, so with her encouragement and a couple of trips to Joann's Fabrics, this was the end result.

Hannah was our angel and she loved her wings. I got the white shirt from Joann's and stenciled stars on it.

 Rachel of course was baby Jesus in the Moses basket.

 Hailey really wanted to be Mary so she has an oversize blue shirt on for her dress and a pillowcase for the headcovering. Robert was an excellent Joseph with his red shirt, brown scrap of fabric for a shall, and a wooden stick that was meant for his closet but was the wrong size.

 Nathan was the story teller and shephard. We have more lambs but those were the only ones they would let daddy borrow.

 I was a wiseman with my robe and the pretty pretty princess crown. My three gifts are by Hailey's feet. They were red, green, and gold decorative candles that Joann's had on clearance.

The kids really enjoyed putting on the play. I hope to make this a new family tradition for a few more years.

Utah Day Trip

We decided to do a quick day trip to Utah on Dec 23rd. Our first stop was to see Aunt Kerstin, Uncle Alex, and Connor. Hailey and Robert have been talking about Connor a lot. They love having a cousin close by.

Kerstin and Alex recently went on a cruise for their one year anniversary. We got to see the pictures and heard about their fun adventure. I hope in 10 years from now we'll be able to do something like that.

Then we did a little Christmas gift exchange.

I made beanbags for Connor.

I also made him a batman cape since he really likes superheros.

Here's the inside of the cape.

For Kerstin and Alex, we gave them a few Christmas books to add to their advent book collection. They gave us a fun lobster/crab eating kit so we can have a special but inexpensive date at home. I've never tried crab or lobster before so I'm excited to try it out.

After we saw Kerstin, we went to visit Rachel, an old friend of Nate's, in Orem. She has 3 young kids which Hailey and Robert had fun playing with. We were much later at getting to our different visits then we planned on, so Rachel offered and made us dinner. While that was getting ready, Hannah was just playing with a toy on the floor when I saw her jerk. It's been a while since she has done convulses before a seizure. I called to Nate to make him aware of what was going to happen and before anyone could do anything, Hannah was in a grand mal seizure. It lasted 2-3 minutes, which is the second longest one up until this date. I thought we were definitely done with grand mal seizures, so saying her like this was very difficult. Also I don't like them happening in front of other people because it's such a hard thing to watch. After she came out of it, she didn't peacefully fall asleep like she usually does. Instead she started screaming uncontrollably. Soon, Nathan was able to rock her to sleep and she had maybe a 30 minute nap.  After her little nap, she was still hysterical.  I wish I had my oils with me to better help her. Rachel had some massaging oil with lavender in it, and Hannah calmed down a little after we put it on her.  We soon left to go to Gramma Cherie's house.

I think the seizure happened because Hannah didn't get good naps in and was out of her normal routine. After this seizure, we increased her medicine to .5ml in the morning and 1.0ml at night.  I'm not sure what has caused this change in frequency of her seizures since she was doing so well, 4 months, on a lower dosage of Keppra. Unfortunately, the only way to understand more and have a good pattern is for Hannah to have more seizures.  I do wonder if in generally winter time lowers her seizure thresh hold making happen more.

We got to Cherie's house around 9:00pm to drop off Christmas presents. We seriously considered whether we should continue home or not. Luckily, common sense hit us and we stayed over night. I find Hannah's seizures very draining for me to handle plus I've been driving all day. Hannah and Hailey shared a twin mattress on the floor while Robert slept on the couch. We had a nice visit with mom and Stan in the morning, then left for home. I still had a lot to get ready before Christmas came and my time was running out. Our first stop was to get Christmas breakfast and dinner food.  Luckily Hannah didn't have another seizure that day even though her schedule was still abnormal.

Little sister

All the kids love Rachel very much. They can't wait until she is older enough to play with them.

Robert frequently gives her kisses which is nice but also makes her cry.

Hannah is trying to "read" Rachel a story.

It didn't last very long, so the pictures came out a little funny.  

Snowy Day and Rachel's check up

On Wednesday, Dec 21, it snowed a lot. We haven't gotten much snow this year so the kids are always excited to play it in. This snow stayed around to give us a white Christmas.

Hailey had her Christmas party on her last day of school before the break today. It was a pj party and we didn't see the point in changing after that.

Rachel also had her last midwife check up today. At almost two months Rachel weighs 11lbs 1oz.

Birthdays

It's a little crazy having two birthdays next to each other. So on Thursday, Dec 15th, Nate and I went out on a date. Then on Friday we had a double birthday party.

Here is Hannah's side.

Here is Nate's side.

I got a fun princess banner and center piece, and a 30's center piece.

After pizza, Hannah opened her presents first.

She got a princess chair from gramma and grampa.

Her own Mr. Potato Head from us.

Food from Aunt Darlene.

Baby doll accessories from gramma and grampa.

An ABC noisy dinosaur from us.

Nate got candy (Mike and Ike) from Robert. We were at the store getting Nathan's birthday card and Robert said that he wanted to get daddy candy for his birthday.

A computer battery from me.

And a card from me. Nathan also got birthday money from mom and dad to get new job-getting shoes.

Then we had cake. Hannah had a German chocolate cake.

She hard a hard time with blowing the candles out.

Nathan had a BTS cake with the other half of the German chocolate cake.

Hannah actually blew out Nathan's candles.

I am so thankful to have both Nathan and Hannah in our family. It was a great party to celebrate them both.