{Christmas at home}

I always feel so bad combining Rod's birthday with Christmas eve...maybe next year I will have us celebrate the day before. We did go out to eat at two super fun restaurants in the city. we ate dinner at a fresh seafood restaurant and then went to this super neat tucked away place for dessert with jazz singers that walked around. The desserts were brought out in super eclectic/anthro-styled dishes. I order a s'more that came in a rabbit eared dome that held smoke in it to make the s'more taste fresh from a camp fire. It was so fun. Rumor has it, that place is closing, but I cannot understand why. So fun! We did all that with our bests, the Keys. I hope Rod enjoyed himself. I know he likes low key birthdays, so I try to respect that. The kids & I ordered the stance BYU socks and I haven't seen him so excited about a gift in a long time. Simple things that that guy.  we had a raspberry cream cake on his actual birthday and showered him with kisses. We tried to wrap everything on the 23rd so that on the 24th we could just relax together & watch The Office (our show--still. after 11 years it never gets old.) while waiting for the 5 to fall asleep. We missed being with family this Christmas, but is certainly was less busy and aloud us to find still moments to be together. We checked off everything on our winter break bucket list too!
We made sure to do our annual Christmas pageant. The kids took their rolls very seriously this year. It was darling. I know they each have a testimony of the trueness of the birth of our beloved Savior.
Christmas morning the kids woke up late. I don't know where they come from! Brad & I used to get up at 2am and were just so giddy and crazy about the excitement of the day. My children sleep in! well..all but Maddox, of course. We even had to wake up Presley so we would have time to open gifts before church. We opened gifts and ate cinnamon pull apart bread and oranges. The two gifts that made my heart happy were That silly Hatchimal thing & the Nintendo classic. "Santa" put an app on his phone this year that alerted him when any store in our city received one of those items. Santa would wake up at 4am and go stand outside stores in the cold waiting to get one of these hot ticket items. Santa really wanted to come through. & he did! and he even snagged a few extras of these items to give away to families looking for them. I am so madly deeply in love with that guy! always gives 100% to everything--especially his Roll as Dad & Husband. & there was one more gift that made me happy. For the last 13 years We have been students or residents, which was hard on our packets. Money was always insanely tight. We still had med school debts, but manageable thanks to the US Air Force! So this year I was able to buy a gift I have wanted to buy him for the past 13 years! Its a silly gift, but something I knew he would enjoy. The complete Seinfeld collection. We reference that show ALL the time! When we were newly weds we would watch it while eating Ernies subs in our first apartment before getting back to our studies.  It felt like we had made it when i was able to actually buy that little gift for him. Silly I know, but for me it signified success after years of hard work. Im sure Ill read this later and laugh at myself, but hey.
After church we went down to the Keys house with their families and had a big Christmas dinner. The children played and the adults chatted and visited. I love the Keys & Laws. They have always welcomed us as part of their family. Rosemary Keys, Travis' Mom was actually my escort through the temple for the first time. i feel so supported and loved by these families. I don't know how we lived so far from them for so long! & To think we all started out in Maryland and found ourselves all out west together. It was a beautiful night with people who made us feel loved.

Funny story-- There is a family on Instagram that I follow because she has such neat ideas on making raising big families easier. I always show rod the pictures of their 7 kids lined up smiling together looking happy. He tells me when I can get our 5 to take a nice picture willingly I can have more babies. haha. We have a hard time taking pictures where we are not threatening lives if they don't smile. haha. But they do make for some funny photos...

The coal makes its appearance every year. The kids are very certain I actually am naughty and thats why I get it, But really its just a sweet reminder of our early days in med school where we learned so much about each other and the trials we overcame.