Happy New Year!

We got to the Simmons in enough time to put both sleeping boys down for the night and find a seat in front of the TV about 5 minutes before the ball dropped. Good timing!

Awaiting the new year!

The Simmons and Allreds were all there waiting...

...Happy New Year!

We stayed up until around 2:30 a.m. just talking and eating all kinds of goodies. It was great...

...until 6:30 rolled around and both boys woke up. Yay.

The boys watching the dogs outside.

I got productive to pass the time before everyone else woke up, so the boys and I went grocery shopping, made breakfast for everyone (baked french toast, homemade buttermilk syrup, and whipped cream), and made Jude's Birthday cake.

This was around 11 a.m. when everyone else was mostly awake and eating breakfast.

Conspiring minds...

Aunt Linda and Aunt Amy keeping a busy little boy occupied.

DaddyG giving his expert advice.

Jude getting tons of attention, as usual. (My cousin Bethany is the one in the middle, the two girls are friends that spent the night)

Jason, Kailey, and Stephen

We headed back to the Glass's house early that afternoon to prepare for Jude's Birthday Party!

New Year's Eve at the Glass's!

On the way home from visiting my dad's grave, we picked up Lance from his dad's and my family dropped us both off at the Glass's house to celebrate New Year's Eve!

Mom and Jen were busy making tons of eggrolls while the rest of us enjoyed HOT POT!

Hot pot is like the asian version of fondue. Instead of oil, you boil various kinds of meats and veggies in the community pot and then you eat it with this "BBQ sauce" (that's not at all like American BBQ sauce). I mix the sauce with peanut butter and I'm in heaven!

Lance was super excited to see his cousins Callie and Bryce after being gone for a week in California. Those three are really good friends and it's always fun for Lance to get together with them.

Most of the night was spent with the men working on building George a gaming table for his steering wheel he bought for his game Grand Tourismo. You have to clamp the wheel to some kind of table and since we don't have one that would work, they built one!

Even Lance wanted to help. I'll have to post a picture of the end product when it's finally finished. It turned out well and just needs to be painted.

Around 11 p.m. we collected the sleepy boys and headed over to the Simmon's house to do the official count-down and spend the night.

Temple Trip and my Dad

The week after Christmas, my family got to do a couple really special things together. The first was visiting the Temple together. Jason still isn't old enough, so he and my cousins Kailey and Bethany stayed at the Simmons with Jude and Mason (Lance was still in California).

The lights were still up from Christmas and it added such beauty to that amazing building.

Glenn, Mom, Amy, Stephen, Chad, me, and Laura

Me and George. It was so nice to be there together.

The siblings (minus Jason).

The whole group. Aunt Linda and Uncle Rob came, too.

I love visiting the Temple and being reminded that our family is forever!

The following day, the whole family made the hour trip out to visit my dad's grave. On the way there, Mom brought out a little book where the kids had written down memories we had of dad or things we remembered about him and we spent the hour reminiscing, laughing, crying, and feeling close to Dad.

We read a few more memories standing next to him, sang a couple songs and said a prayer. It was nice to be there as a family and remember what an amazing man Dad was and is. This sounds strange, but it was nice and relieving to feel the loneliness and longing to be with him. We were not standing there alone--we were together, all feeling the same, all knowing that we were there for one another and always will be. The pain never really goes away, or even weakens. Life and time have a way of enabling us to put the pain on the back burner and go on with life. It's nice, though, to bring it forward every once in a while and just remember. Remember what we lost, remember the good times, remember the love, and know that one day we will have him back again.

We love you, Dad. Thanks for being the best father anyone could ask for.

Post-Christmas Festivities

My family decided to have Christmas dinner the day after Christmas so everyone could make it. As per a long-standing tradition, we had fondue! Actually, the tradition was that after the kids went to bed on Christmas Eve, the adults would then have fondue and once you were 12 (I think), you were considered adult enough to join. Well, we all passed the test this year!

After dinner, everyone posed with their gifts and took a picture. Of special note that you cannot see in the picture is the great phone George's parents bought for me because my old one was on it's last legs. Yay!

Jude thought everything was pretty great. Lance was in California at the time, so we missed taking his picture.

The next day, we all set out to spend our Christmas cash! For the past few years, my mom has been giving everyone cash for their big gift and the rule is you have to spend it all the day after Christmas. Anything you don't spend is to be given back and we all meet that evening together to show everyone what we purchased. It's a lot of fun and a great new tradition!

Everyone gathered to show off their purchases.

Jude hanging with his adoring Grandpa Glenn, Uncle Tyler, and cousin Mason.

Mason and Jude are good buddies. :)

It was nice to see a lot of Chad. He's been in New York City attending Columbia's Dental school, so we don't see too much of him. My boys both think he is just awesome and seem to gravitate toward him.

Jude liked to help Uncle Chad play the piano.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas morning, Jude was up at his usual time of about 6:45. So we got to enjoy a couple hours of staring at this:

Sometime between the time everyone went to bed and when we woke up, Santa had come and left behind a wonderland of gifts. Jason, Amy, and Stephen were pretty oblivious:

Finally, after everyone woke up and most people had a shower, we all lined up. 

Wait, wait... that was like 1999. Okay, here we go:

Jude was excited about his first Christmas. Actually, I think he was just excited because everyone else was. He really had no idea what was going on.

Mom starting to hand out the gifts. I guess we'll never really outgrow Christmas morning.

Jude sort-of understood opening gifts but lost interest really quick. We ended up saving a couple of his gifts to give him at his Birthday. Good thing he's too young to understand.

Amy gave everyone these amazing containers. She hand-painted each one based on the individual (i.e. Chad's had NYC's skyline, Stephen's had the 'Y' from BYU and the fight song painted, Jason's had the iTunes silhouettes all over it, and Laura and Tyler had stars--Tyler is a huge Cowboys fan). She taped a gift card on the bottom and then filled the entire container in layers of mini M&M's she had purchased in bulk and then shorted by hand! She is amazing! Here is ours with UVa's logo on the top and the fight song painted on the side (AND a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse gift card inside):

Earrings! Thanks, George!

Collar stays from Brooks Brothers, compliments of Chad. George is super excited to try them out!

Jude found the best gift ever!

Yay for makeup giftcards!

Stephen got an iTouch... lucky dog. :)

My mom got all the girls "Bump-its" which George and I thought was pretty hilarious because one of our favorite things to laugh about is the fact that Bump-its are actually on the market. I couldn't tell if it was a gag gift or it was meant to be a true gift. Either way, it was a good laugh. I'm not entirely sure it will actually make it into my hair...

Jude enjoying a gift.

Yay! A dehumidifier! We live in the basement apartment so this will really come in handy! Especially since it gets so moist in our kitchen our pantry literally "rains". Thanks, Mom and Glenn!

Chad decided to help out Santa with the big gifts and got everyone in our family Seven for All Mankind jeans! These are designer jeans that cost anywhere from $150 to $200. Way too generous, but they look fabulous! Thanks, Chad!


After a great (late) breakfast at IHOP with my family, we drove to the Glass's house to celebrate the rest of Christmas day with them. It's always a big party with tons of family and LOTS of food! Everyone is always so kind and generous and every year we've left with wonderful gifts for ourselves and the boys. 

Jude's sporting his Chinese Christmas outfit. I think he looks adorable!

Yum! Turkey!

After dinner everyone sat around and talked and played Grand Turismo, a racing game Nathan and George have. Even the "adults" got into it. :)

Jude loved all the attention he got. Eat, Jude. Eat!

Once again, somehow several of the pictures on my camera disappeared from this event... I don't know how that keeps happening.

It was a great Christmas day full of fun, family, and lots of food. It doesn't get much better than that!