Christmas 2011

For Christmas 2011, we went to California and spent time with my family. Brek and I flew out the week before, but Joe was busy playing for Annie, so he couldn't come out until Christmas Eve. My sister and her family weren't able to make the trip out from Indiana either, tho I did my best to make her feel guilty about neglecting me. Sadly, it still didn't work and we had to settle with iChat to "unite" the family for the holiday.

Still, it was a nice vacation. Brek had his cousins, my brother Mark's girls, around most of the time. That was both a blessing and a curse. Brek and Anna fought pretty constantly. And I was able to see and reconnect with a lot of friends. I didn't take many pictures, and none of those I got to visit. I hope that someday I'll be better about that. Anyway, on to the pictures:

Brek getting ready to see Santa

It obviously didn't go well. Here's to next year!

A series of pictures of Brek at the piano. He had a blast, and was just so darn cute!

Love that he's so proud of himself.

For the first week, Grandma was busy sewing away on Christmas dresses. And Brek loved to "help."

I know these pictures show them getting along all peach-keen. I mean, they're taking a bath, right? But I promise you, they aren't all angelic. Mind you, back in April Anna taught Brek all about "defending" toys, aka taking them away from others, and despite the fact she has 2 older sisters and lots of cousins around, she's not a fan of sharing. Especially with Brek. So the minute he came near her, she started screaming. See, not his fault. But then he'd start pulling her hair. We actually have one of those moments on video, but I haven't learned how to upload videos to the blog yet, so you'll just have to imagine it. Brek is actually quite the tyrant when it comes to pulling hair. It's ALMOST ALWAYS long blond hair, but he's also proved us wrong on that statistic. But with Anna, it's just because he can. Devil Children. Man I love them!

Christmas this year was quite a bit different than the way we Normally do it. We still had our traditional fondue dinner on Christmas Eve. (To be honest, I have no recollection of that being a tradition, but they say it is, so we do it.) I got a lot of slack for choosing a "different" sort of cheese dip. But it was the favorite, and oh so yummy! They all thanked  me later.

Then Grandpa read the Christmas story from the New Testament. Each of the kids were given Little People characters to contribute to the Nativity scene while Grandpa read. But Anna didn't want to share them and Brek just wanted to throw them, so it wasn't the most reverent and respectful pondering of the Christ-child that one would have hoped. :) And we sang Christmas carols. That was fun. Not something we did growing up, but since we started doing Christmas on our own, (meaning just my immediate family and not with the extended family) we have done it and I really enjoy it. Not that we're all awesome singers, but Christmas is just a fun time to sing and be joyful.

Brek in his Christmas PJ's

And then the kids (and Joe & I) got to open our Christmas PJ's. Normally we open all of our presents on Christmas Eve and Santa comes on Christmas morning. But like I said, we did it differently this year. So just the pj's. Then the kids went to bed, and I was given a paper airplane making lesson by my dad (because for some reason I never got one as a kid) while we waited for Santa to make an appearance.

Such a happy boy!

All the kids in their Christmas PJ's

Christmas morning the kids got to see what Santa brought them before we all got dressed and headed off to Church. I also made my awesome cinnamon rolls the day before. Made an awesome Christmas morning breakfast!

Anna with her loot from Santa

Brek reading his book from Santa.

Looking so studly in his outfit made by Grandma

This is just an awesome picture of my brother David that I had to include it, even tho Brek it's looking up at the camera. Brek LOVED to rub Uncle David's beard. Very cute! 

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An attempt at all 4 kids in front of the tree before going to church. Didn't work too well from my end. I'm hoping my brother got a better one; if he did, I'll post it later.

I LOVE these dresses that my mom made. My sister's 3 girls have matching ones too. I think they are some of the best work she has done. And they are just SO PRETTY!!!

After Church we came home to tackle the wrapped piles around the tree. At my request, we all got back into our pj's, cuz they are so comfy. And then we iChat-ed some more with my sister, and between the 7 kids, had them take turns opening presents and showing each other what they got.

Brek almost had to delay opening his presents, but after a bottle, he was much happier and the nap was post-poned until they were all unwrapped.

Unwrapping a present.

Anna opening a present from her daddy.

Brek opening a present from Grandma and Grandpa.

He got his very own laptop! We're still trying to teach him that he gets this instead of the grown-up computer.

After Brek went down for a nap, Joe and I were able to open our presents. I felt very spoiled by my family, as we got practically everything off of our "hopes and dreams" list. We thought just one item would have been generous, but were pleasantly surprised as we continued to unwrap. Most excited items were a new camera and camera case, a portable DVD player (so that Brek could watch a move AND we could still use the computer), new sweatshirts, new work pants for Joe, a new wallet (also for Joe, which will no longer put holes in the butt of his pants), and an upgrade on Finale. We also gave each other chocolates - chocolate covered cherries for me and Costco truffles for Joe.

FIRST picture taken with the new camera. Maybe I should have prepped my subjects better.

Picture of Joe taken WHILE recording a video. So cool!

Joe's first time behind the camera. This was the 26th.

Mom worked hard on Christmas dinner too; we had a Turkey with THE WORKS! Yummy, yummy food. Gotta love all the good eating that takes place around the holidays! And my mom was AMAZING! Especially considering how much she doesn't care for cooking. She's dang good at it!

Grandma's reaction to post-Christmas Dinner.

 A few more shots: Brek's game from Santa this year was a bucket with bean bags. It seemed fitting because EVERYTHING gets thrown. Brek's favorite thing to do with it is this:

Brek with his head in the bucket and Katie playing on his laptop.

Brek learning to throw paper airplanes.

Cute naked bum.

And even cuter giving loves to daddy.

Let's see, other things I don't have pictures of...

I got to be at my Biggs Family Christmas party. Very fun to see cousins, aunts, and uncles. Brek LOVED being in the middle of the kids game of freeze tag. He really thinks he's a big kid.

I was in the guest room/office/sewing room. Brek came in to find me. My dad came and stood in the doorway. Brek pointed to me and said, "Mommy." My dad asked, "Who am I?" Brek pointed to him and said, "Papa." SO CUTE!

A couple days later Brek wasn't feeling too well. My parents were in the office/sewing room and Brek wandered in there. He held up his hands to Grandpa. Grandpa picked him up. Brek laid his hands on his shoulder and they cuddled for 10 minutes or so. By the time I realized it, I couldn't get the camera fast enough to capture the moment.

The last day we were there we ventured out to see Grandpa's shop, look at some fish, and then went to the park. We didn't last long before Brek had a COMPLETE meltdown on the swings. It was weird.

We weren't planning on staying up on New Year's Eve. We broke out the sparkling cidar and counted down with the east coast. Then we played chicken foot and watched Big Bang episodes. So we made it to midnight after all. It really was a fun (and low-key) night. I loved it!

Hope everyone else had a nice vacation and holiday season.

Feast of Tabernacles and General Conference

Last weekend was a very special event - General Conference. Unfortunately, Joe had to work so I was watching by myself, but he was able to catch up on it each evening when he got home. General Conference is something in our church that we look forward to 2 times each year, the beginning of April and October, where we get to listen to our living prophet and other church leaders. It seemed that there was a lot of talks given about love - loving others and feeling the love of our Father in Heaven. It was a wonderful Conference! I especially enjoyed Elder Holland's testimony about the Book of Mormon and Elder Osguthorpe's talk about teaching, since I was just called to teach the 13-14 year old girls on Sunday. I am excited to re-read and study the words of these leaders, as I find that they bring an uplifting power of hope and faith. I had many thoughts come to mind during those 2 days about things I can do to be better and improve. Now, I just need to get started!

There is a tradition in Joe's family for Conference, and this time was the first time I participated. Every Conference, each family makes cinnamon rolls for the weekend. I have only made cinnamon rolls one other time, and it took ALL DAY! It's quite the effort. The day before Conference I had been toying with the idea of doing it for Joe, because, although he had to miss the actual Conference for work, I didn't want him to feel left out. Plus, I kept hearing about all of his other siblings and their cinnamon rolls too. In some ways, I was feeling pressure to keep up with the family. Of course, I didn't tell Joe any of this. In between Conference sessions, I pulled out the recipe to see what it would actually take, and if I even had the ingredients. For some blessed reason, it didn't seem as hard or as time-consuming as the first time. I thought it was a fun surprise for Joe to come home to.
They turned out pretty darn delicious if you ask me! Thanks to my cousin Ashley for the recipe. We love them! I even got to share with our landlords; it's always fun to share goodies!

So, while I surprised Joe with the cinnamon rolls, he came home with a fun activity for our evening. One of the members of his band is Jewish, and he had told Joe that it was currently the Feast of Tabernacles. During this holiday, Jews build what are called "Sukkots" in their yards. It used to be that they would then "live" in these huts during the holiday season. Now, it isn't as much "living," as just spending time, tho some do bring out TVs and internet and such.
Anyway, so Joe's idea was to build a "sukkot," or basically, build a fort, but in our living room instead of outside. So that's just what we did:It took a lot of work and creativity to get the blankets to stay on the fan, but eventually, it did work. We brought in our ironing board, swiffer, and several chairs as well to extend the edges.


Then, we sat inside, enjoyed our cinnamon rolls, and watched some YouTube videos of a Hasidic Jew, Matisyahu, who is a very famous Reggae rapper. He's good! - you should watch the video if you get a chance.
And then we watched Hairspray (my choice), and did some fun crazy dancing. We left the fort up for a couple days, and I watched my Sunday Conference inside as well. It definitely was a great weekend!