Merry Christmas!

What a wonderful time of the year, and so very busy!

In the past month, we've enjoyed so many wonderful things:

-A trip to Sedona (one of the best, in my opinion. My parents really planned ahead and had so many fun activities for the children, it cut way down on the number of fights and meltdowns with all the grandkids. Poor Oliver got sick, and Henry on the last morning, but aside from that, it was a nice, relaxed, fun time. I'm so happy we have this tradition.)

-A missionary homecoming. It has been so fun having Natalie home again, and Jeremy getting to know her, and vice versa. She keeps commenting how he's so cute, sometimes she just can't even handle it! Natalie, I know the feeling! Jeremy has such a fun personality, sometimes I can't handle it!. The day before she came home, there was also a proposal, so there's been the excitement surrounding that, too. It's been fun getting to know Travis' fiancée Anna. She's such a fun lady. My favorite experience with her so far is from Christmas. Jeremy got a tool bench from grandma and grandpa C, and she was so in love with it. She spent some time with Jeremy, building the little tool box it came with. I thought it was adorable to see her interacting like that with her future nephew.

-A birthday. Jeremy turned 3 on the 7th! I have a 3 year old! His birthday has been spread out over quite a bit of the month, with no complaints from him! He has loved getting to open so many presents, and they have seemed to just keep coming! He's been having a blast this month between birthday and Christmas. This will definitely be his favorite time of the year growing up!

-Lots of Christmas festivities! This one will need broken up, too. There has been too much fun for one paragraph!

-A parade, riding in the fire truck. One of my favorite memories from this year. Jeremy got such a kick out of going to the fire station, seeing the great big fire trucks. He didn't want to go up on top of it, but he loved riding inside and throwing candy at the kids on the street.

-Christmas eve with the Maroneys. Lots of fun, especially going to see the temple lights. Jeremy has loved seeing the Christmas lights everywhere this year, so walking the temple grounds was a great treat for him. It was especially endearing to see him holding hands with my mom, looking at all the beautiful lights, pointing out the red spiders, and saying he was going to eat them. He's such a silly boy, I just love it. :)

-Christmas day. What a day! Jeremy was so delighted by his motorcycle from Santa. He spent all morning scooting around the house. Justin and I had gotten each other a rocking chair as our big present, so I had only gotten Justin a few small things beside that: bike lights, a headlamp, a blast match thing for lighting fires. He, on the other hand, ignored the budget and surprised me with a beautiful Greg Olsen print. It's called Angels of Christmas, and it made me cry. It's such a sweet painting of two little kids placing different pieces of a nativity. I love it.

After our Christmas, we headed to my parents' for Maroney Christmas. More presents were exchanged, most notably, the beautiful Greg Olsen prints my parents got for each of their children. My walls are going to look so good once I hang up my new paintings! The print from my parents is called Traveling By Book, it's a boy reading a book, looking up into clouds that look kind of like a castle. My family knows just which prints to pick to pull at my heartstrings.

After Maroneys, we headed to the Clements, where we started our Christmas festivities with a family nap time. Jeremy fell asleep on the way there, so we laid him down, then Justin and I took a nap, too, along with several other family members. After about an hour I got Jeremy up, and we did presents. I already mentioned the tool set Jeremy got, that Anna was so enamored with. Justin got an easy-up, and I got a water bath canner set. I'm excited to make all sorts of sauces and jams in it. :)

Today we celebrated with the extended Clement side. I got to meet Justin's aunt and uncle Robin and Jason. They live in Oregon, and came down to visit. It was a pretty laid back visit, with lunch and lots of visiting. Jeremy loved their trampoline, of course. He spent most of our 3 hours jumping on it, despite it being rather cold and windy today.

It has been such a busy, wonderful month, full of great memories, and I'm looking forward to this coming week to veg out and catch my breath!

One other exciting event this month was finding out that we are having another baby boy! It will be so fun watching Jeremy and his brother grow up together, hopefully best friends more often than enemies. :) I know it'll be crazy with two boys, but I'm so exciting for the adventures that await. Being pregnant has certainly added a degree of craziness to the holidays, since I've had a lot less energy than normal, but thankfully the awful "morning" (all day) sickness subsided just before Sedona, which was the start of all the holiday busyness. All the same, I'm excited to have a less busy schedule for the next little bit. Maybe I'll be able to do some of the things around the house that I need to get done before baby comes!