A VERY Merry (and Spontaneous) Christmas!

Santa came to our house this year! And while Damon couldn't have cared less... Dominic was soooo excited (and a bit overstimulated) about all of his presents.

He walked out of his room Christmas morning with a steep and audible intake of breath followed by an "Oh wow!" and then made a beeline to his brand new KITCHEN SET! Just what he's always wanted. Oh Santa, how did you know!?




The only problem was that after seeing the kitchen set, he didn't have much interest in opening all the other wrapped gifts. Maybe it's because he didn't realize that there were more toys waiting in those beautifully wrapped packages. Maybe it's because he has an apparent phobia of wrapping paper. Whatever the reason, Mommy and Daddy had fun opening up his gifts. :) Once he saw what was inside each one, he'd usually exclaim "Oh wow!" and then he'd get busy playing with it. So busy, in fact, that it was a little difficult to direct his attention to the next gift. He'd usually ignore us until we opened the next package and showed him what was inside. Then he'd drop his current item of interest and fall in love with the freshly unwrapped one. A little overstimulating for a 22 month old? Yeah... we had a couple of tantrums. ;) But all in all... our Christmas was very, very merry! :)



Here's a few pictures of Christmas morning...

So, there we were. I had leisurely showered that morning while the boys were still sleeping. Rich cooked a delicious Christmas breakfast. Dominic woke up before I could dry my hair, so I pulled it into a wet bun for gift opening. We had just finished and were sitting in the living room when Rich's family called. They wanted us home for Christmas. We wanted to be home. What is Christmas without your loved ones??? I wanted so badly to go home and see my Dad and my mom and my siblings. The thoughts of missing out on seeing our our neices and nephews and our boys not being able to play with their cousins made us so sad. So sad, in fact, that we decided we needed to jump on a plane.

Rich ran downstairs, got online, and found a flight leaving Christmas day (that day) at 2:30 p.m.

It was 11:30 a.m.

"Crys... can you get us all four packed in an hour if I take care of the tickets and finding us a ride?"

I thought for a few seconds...

"Oh my gosh, ok! Let's do it!"

One hour of absolute pandemonium later, I had packed all four of us into two suitcases, fed the baby, dressed the boys, and we were out of the house by 12:30... my hair still sopping wet. It was so fun to be so spontaneous! Damon was an ANGEL on the plane, (I was really nervous about that) Dominic was, well... Dominic. But he did pretty good. He's just soooo busy. I sat by the window so I could have more privacy to nurse. Bad choice. Dom wanted to open and close the window shades the ENTIRE flight. So I sat with two babies in my lap, while nursing. Pretty talented, huh?

One of the highlights of our trip was surprising my Dad. I love my Dad so much! He's not been well, and it's one of the reasons I was so sad not to be coming home for Christmas.

It was the ONLY trip I can remember in our entire marriage where we didn't get stuck driving on snowy, icy roads. They were, for once, clear as a bell. And we were so grateful!






We didn't tell my dad we were coming. We just showed up. The look on his face was PRICELESS. We made the right decision. It was soooo good to be home for Christmas!

I was able to spend some time with my brother, Jarrod, and his wonderful family. My sister, Robyn and her two beautiful girls drove back down to Utah and spent time with us while we stayed with Rich's family. I even got to see my mom and her husband, (even if only for a very brief time). The only person I missed out on seeing was my big sister, Jeanne. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas Sis!

We had so much fun staying with Rich's family. They're a very entertaining group. Of course the guys did the usual... playing Age of Empires on their nerdy laptops. ;) Or... they tried. Apparently there were some technical difficulties. And the girls had plenty of catching up to do... until 2 in the morning... the usual. We all played "Ticket to Ride" a few times, and ate waaaaaayyy too much junk! We had so much fun and will never forget this "last minute" Christmas.

The flight home was uneventful, except for Dominic almost threw up the 5 chocolate chip granola bars we let him devour on the plane so he would be quiet. We got home about 20 minutes before midnight on New Year's Eve... Dominic crashed so hard he probably would've slept in his carseat all night if we would've let him.

Thank you soo much to all of our family who loved us like crazy and showed us a wonderful time! You guys are the BEST! We're so glad we came home for Christmas!