"God bless us everyone" - Tiny Tim

We hope that you all have had a very Merry Christmas! Ours was Fabulous, minus the way it ended... read on: I will tell you more.

So the picture above is us on the 22nd. We decided to take Mav sledding at the Mt. Ogden golf course. We had such a fun time!!!! And we think that Maverick enjoyed it too. The hills were perfect and all 3 of us even went off a jump together on the sled like shown...that's the part Mav wasn't so sure about, but it was a blast! That might be a new Saturday before Christmas tradition...fun!

This is us at Powder Ridge Condos on that ridiculously crazy storm day last week. We were invited to join Tara (my sister) and Eddie with their kids up to their family condo. The next day was crazy windy and constantly snowy. with crazy thunder and pink lightening. Yikes! We enjoyed the pool, but our sledding plans fell through. We had a great time up there, but headed out early because of the storm....to make a long story short-er: 3 hours later we made it down Powder Mountain road in our Honda Civic! (I knew those snow tires were a good purchase!) We were blessed! In
the picture Mav is so sad...but I wanted to show that just outside those windows was a crazy blizzard. Another building was just about 5 yards aways and you can't even see it. Crazy!

Here we are at the Ogden city center lights last Monday. It was cold, but we had a great time with Ben (my brother) and Tara and their kids and my mom dad and Jake. Mav loved seeing all the lights!

And He even got to see a real live Santa Reindeer! He wasn't that impressed but I thought it was pretty sweet!

And here we have sweet baby Tate wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger playing Jesus in the Stratford family annual Nativity. What a sweetheart!
We had a Mary (Madi) a Joseph (Tracen) a Shepard (Tyler) and OF COURSE a sweet little white lamb (Maverick) Uncle shane filled in as the other many roles ie: donkey, Ox, etc. And Deanne was the Star, well, she held the star.
Maverick in a Santa hat. Merry Christmas!

Maverick got spoiled for Christmas. Here he is sitting in his new "just his size" chair from Gma and Gpa Stratford. They were so nice to come deliver it to our house on Christmas eve and spend some time with us. They are always so generous. And Mav has loved it! He piles everything that he can find onto it then laughs as he pulls them all off and dumps them on the floor. not my favorite game, but whatever keeps him happy! It's kind of his new game. He got this turtle block building toy from my parents and he laughed his head off while I quickly piled the blocks on and he just as quickly pulled them off. Silly Maverick!

Mav was so cute at my moms house on Christmas eve playing in my moms Christmas bears! We have a tradition on Christmas eve that my parents send all of their kids and spouses to a movie and they watch all the grand kids....while they also prepare Christmas eve dinner. We went and saw the new National Treasure! It was a great flick. Not our favorite of the year (that happens to be August Rush...in case you were wondering) But we liked it quite a bit. Thanks mom and dad! And dinner was sooooo yummy too. Sorry I messed up on the broccoli... next year maybe I can try again.

We also went caroling to a few neighbors, got our annual Christmas Jammie's, then everyone went home except Brian and I stayed there to spend Christmas with my parents and Jake who leaves on his mission in just over a month. So after we got the Mav in bed we went down to Morgan Elementary at about 11:00 and went sledding. It was a perfect Christmas eve night and Bri, Jake and I had a blast going down the hill on one sled. We even made a pretty sweet jump. After sledding we went home and had "CocoMotion" (Delicious Hot Chocolate) Then we watched "Muppet's Christmas Carol" while we wrote our letters to Santa. It was a great Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning we slept in until 7:30. My mom was pacing...she usually has us all awake by about 5:00! But since we didn't get to bed until around 2:00 I guess she slept in. Maverick missed it all. He slept in until 10:00, so he ate breakfast with us then headed downstairs to open his gifts and to see what Santa brought. He had several new fun things but really the only gift he was excited about at all at first was the banana Santa left in his stocking. It was hilarious! He would open each gift then quickly say..."Nana" because he sooo wanted that next big bite. Now remember that this was right after he had just eaten a large waffle, bacon, and eggs breakfast, but the poor kid acted like he had never tasted food in his life. Funny Boy!

After we were done we packed up and headed over to the Stratfords where mom and dad had prepared a delicious meal, where I ate way too much, then we opened gifts ---once again, way to generous! Then we went out and played "fox and geese" in the snow. It was way fun, but I am way out of shape!!!

Now, as I was saying in the beginning.... our christmas was so wonderful until on the drive home we saw one of my worst fears!!! We came upon a car accident, and to my horror we recognized the truck involved. It was Melanie and Tylers! I instantly panicked. There were fire engines and ambulances... and to know little Madi was in the car and Melanie who is 7 months pregnant, It could have been so bad. Thank goodness everyone was wearing a seat belt! To learn more about what happened read their blog. It was so scary for me. I couldn't sleep that night and I have been sad for them, but things really could have been worse. They all were blessed.

Also that night Brian had a horrible fever and we know now that the poor guy has strep throat. Who wants to be sick at Christmas time?!? Hopefully he will feel better soon.

The one highlight to the end of our Christmas Day was that when we got home we found a way nice bike on our patio with our name on it from "Santa". We have given such type gifts to others at Christmas time, so it is weird being on the receiving end, but honestly we are so grateful!!! I had wanted to give Bri a bike for Christmas because he so badly needs a new one. He is so good to go without a car and to just walk or ride the old bike that he has now everywhere. But when it came right down to it we just couldn't afford it... Thank YOU for it! I know you are reading this and we really REALLY are so thankful and hope that someday we can return the favor. Thanks for helping us feel of your Christmas spirit!!!

Thanks to everyone who helped make our Christmas and our Christmas season Merry and Bright!