Christmas in VA--Part TWO!

I'm finally on to the second half of my Christmas post! (I've been sick for the last week, and now I'm starting to feel better and Jake is sick. Isn't that how it always goes?? In any case, I stand by that excuse for the large gap in my update.)

So, the second week in Virginia we packed up the cars and drove 2 hours to the Massanutten Resort. My parents booked 2 condos for the week! They were stacked liked a townhouse, and it was awesome. During that week we did plenty of laying around of course--But in between the relaxing we went to the rec center pool, sledding, the waterpark, and tubing! Some of the family even took one day to go skiing and snowboarding. And then every night after the kids were all asleep, we stayed up playing games and watching movies. It was so nice to be "away together" as a family like that--no distractions.

We started a new tradition over the break, and it's one that I hope to continue every Christmas. On the first night in Virginia my dad presented the idea of having a nightly devotional. Basically, we pulled topics from a hat and took turns sharing a brief spiritual thought each night. It was a really wonderful thing to experience as a family, and I think it's safe to say we grew individually and as a whole by doing this. I highly recommend it :). after all, it's so important to remember Christ during this special time of year.

Here is a small sampling of pictures from Massenutten. (really--I know it will seem like a lot of pictures, but my family takes A LOT of pictures..so it's only a few by comparison)

Day One: Grandma builds a fort with the boys. What a cool Oma huh?

At the Rec Center pool. Luckily the room was heated up nice and toasty!

"teaching" jake how to swim.

Sledding on a random little hill. The snow was packed and icy, so we got going pretty fast!

This picture is too awesome not to post. The hill was small enough that even David got to go by himself! His expression was priceless.

The waterpark was soo cool! They had a lazy river, a bunch of big water slides, a kiddie playground pool, and even a hut tub for kids--heated up like a warm bath! The only downside was that the Flowrider was broken :( but other than that it was awesome!

After spending all of News Years Eve day at the waterpark, we could barely stay up til the ball dropped! And then Jake had a night terror around 11:45. By the time Wes and I got him calm and back to bed it was 12:20...(Maybe he just wanted to be a part of the New Years celebration!?) I can't think of a better way to spend the holidays than with family around you--even if one of them is screaming his head off ;)

We flew into the New Year at the speed of light.. well maybe not that fast, but I swear, those inner tubes got some air a few times! We went tubing in groups so that the kids didn't have to go out in the cold. Thanks to Mom, Dad and Syd for watching our babies so we could double up!

We were so sad to leave the resort at the end of the week. On the way home we stopped at Yoders--a little Mennonite farm and country store. Jake loved feeding the goats there!

As always, the trip ended too quickly.

Thanks to Mom and Dad for hosting a wonderful Christmas...We miss you already.

Christmas in VA--Part one

It's hard to believe that the holidays are over. Every year they seem to go by faster and faster. And now we are into the dreaded winter months. I don't call it dreaded until January--before then the snow is somewhat fun and tolerable because of the warm christmas fuzzies. But here we are, ready to find enjoyment indoors as we wait for spring and sunshine. We just flew back home this past sunday from our 2 week Virginia holiday. This trip was full of adventures, some awesome and some not. This post will just be about the first week of the trip.. the part spent at my parent's house.

As much as I want to get to the parts of my story that include heartwarming photos, I just can't skip over the journey it took to go home for Christmas. If you know me well, or follow my blogs, you'll know that I have major travel anxiety. I will spend the entire week before a trip planning and making nazi lists and pretty much organizing down to the smallest detail. In my opinion, traveling with babies is not for the faint hearted, and being OCD organized on a flight with a wiggly toddler is the only way to go. So here I was on that fateful friday. We had a 5 pm flight and I was just about to put jake down for a nice long nap. Wes was at the gym, and I was feeling pretty smug, thinking about how all my planning was paying off. I would have a good 3 hours leftover to pick up the house and make myself pretty. Finally, a relaxing travel experience to come. Mostly relaxing anyway--We knew that there was a blizzard brewing in Virginia, but I had double checked with my airline that morning, and everything was scheduled to go on time.

Thats when I got the call.

In an annoyingly cheerful voice comes the automated message: "Your flight has been cancelled." I sat in shocked silence for a few moments and then did the only thing that made sense. I called my dad, and tried not to cry.

Delta (the devils airline) had rescheduled us for the next day. The thing is, that blizzard was starting friday night and was supposed to reach record breaking heights on Saturday. My dad knew right away that the airport would surely be shut down, and we would all be stuck until at least Monday. After some magical maneuvering, he was able to get us flights out on Southwest (Heavens Airline) that would be leaving almost 3 hours earlier.

Pro's: we were able to get home that day!

Cons: The next two hours were incredibly stressful, I didnt have time for Jake's nap, or to make myself decent, and we barely made the flight. (not to mention the sinkful of dirty dishes and the unemptied diaper pail that were really smelly to come home to..yikes..)

That night was quite an adventure..Jessica's husband was flying from Phoenix, and Syd's new boyfriend was coming to meet the fam, flying from Nashville. AND WE ALL MADE IT!!! our flights were literally the last ones to get in before the airport was shut down. so despite delays and cancellations, (and even baggage stuck in snow on the jetway half the night), everyone made it home for Christmas.

**Props to dad for driving us home in the blizzard at 3 in the morning. You are an animal :) **

So for the rest of this post I am just going to post some pictures from those first few days, when we were all snowed in together.

Wonderful things about Virginia:

I LOVE my parents house at Christmas. My mom is a first class decorator.. Its pretty much Christmasland and I know I'll never be able to do it as good.

I love being able to sit down with the whole fam.. We realized this year that with the new addition of the boyfriend, we are starting to have a pretty crowded table--and I love it!

(this is the morning after the horrible travel day/night. we were all pretty out of it)

EILEENS

The best bakery/deli ever. The snow and ice couldn't stop us from venturing out for lunch!

Jake and Sawyer finally got to become little friends!!! It was so fun watching them interact.. (maybe in 6 more months Sawyer will be able to keep up with Jakes speed--and maybe by then Jake will learn to share, and stop stealing all Sawyer toys...)

We finally got to spend some time with Mitch! For those readers who don't know, Sydney wrote him for the second half of his mission. They had only met once and its been a whirlwind romance since he got home in November. We loved getting to know him for the few days that he was in Virginia.

It was great having Wesley with me for the entire trip. Usually he has to work, so he'll come for just a few days, or often not at all when I come to VA. But this time, he was able to come for the whole 2 weeks! Thanks Wes!

Jake helped make sugar cookies--I'm not sure if he liked pressing the cookie cutters into the dough or eating it more--Its a toss up.

I don't think this picture needs any more explanation than

YUM.

Christmas morning!!! Rice cereal!!! (and no, not the gross baby food stuff...if you are curious, I'll send you the recipe.)

Davids teachers helped him pick out Christmas presents for the whole fam! He got cheesy christmas ties for the men.. they even play Christmas songs when you squeeze them! (I will definitely be forcing wesley to wear his at least once a season--forever.)

And he got us all fun socks!

I was worried that Jake would open one gift and be totally distracted, but he caught on pretty quickly with the whole unwrapping thing--He really seemed to take a few minutes (alright, seconds) to appreciate each gift before ripping into the next!

Riding Grandpa! (by the way, this is now his new obsession. He tries to climb onto my back any time I'm not standing up)

If you've never been to a Wegmans Grocery Store, you haven't lived. Its like a theme park of foods. My first stop was to buy a sweet scoop of gelato. mmm.

Well, I think this post has dragged on long enough. But there is still a lot more to post!!! My next one will be about week two in VA--at the Massenutten Ski Resort. Stay tuned!

Confession

Sometimes, when we get a late start on Jake's bedtime routine, this happens.

Mother Of The Year strikes again :)

videos and milestones

Jake learned how to count to three recently. However, I taught him by saying "one...twooo......THREEEEEEEEE!" all the time. And now he just likes just saying the THREEE! because it's just so exciting. I caught it on tape the other day and here it is!

We got dumped on with about a foot of snow last weekend, and took jake sledding for the very first time! I have a couple clips--mostly just for the grandmas. :)

I have a couple of other milestones to share. First of all, Jake has expanded his vocabulary to include the word YES! actually he says it more like "YESH!" But this one little word has made life just a little bit easier, especially at mealtimes. Now when I ask him if he wants a yogurt or a pickle, he can say NO to the pickle and YESH to the yogurt. Hooray!

And my favorite new milestone: Jake can say his prayers. Right before his bedtime he will fold his arms, bow his head, and squint up at us with one eye open. He is not always perfectly reverent for the whole prayer, but he starts them just right. A couple weeks ago Jake surprised me by folding his arms before I put him down for his nap. Now, we usually just pray with him before bedtime, but my little guy has decided that this is is definitely not enough. So when he folded his arms expectantly, I said "of course we can pray, would you like to say it?" and then Jake surprised me again by bowing his head, streaming about 5 seconds of gibberish, and ending with a loud AMEN. ha! My first thought was to feel so touched and humbled that my son is picking up on such a wonderful little routine, and somehow seems to understand that family prayer is an important part of each day. And my second thought was, Jake must be holding out on me. He doesn't talk very much yet, so I am never quite sure how much he can understand. But he seems to know a lot more than he lets on! Can we say "selective hearing?"

I love that kid.

Thanksgiving and such

Well, another month has gone by! It's hard to believe we are just a few short weeks away from Christmas!!! Although I've had a few noteworthy things to blog about in the past month, I've been suffering from a bit of writers block. I am actually still suffering, but it occurred to me this morning, that if I don't update now, I probably won't do it until after the holidays. So here I am.

At the end of October, Jake officially turned 18 months and was able to start going to nursery! I admit, we were a little emotional on his first day...It was so surreal seeing him run around with all those kids, and he did just fine! Initially he cried, but after a few minutes being distracted by all the wonderful new toys, I was able to slip out unnoticed :) We checked on him every so often but he seemed pretty content. It's a weird thing watching him in there...On the one hand, I keep thinking, "wow my kid is so old! He's in nursery!" But then watching him run around with 3 year olds, I can't help but notice how tiny he looks. Isn't he still my little baby?

This was his "first day in nursery" outfit

After church he got to see Aunt Sydney, one of his all time favorite people. He just loves it when she comes to play!! :)

Jake has attached himself to a few toys in the last little while. You'll notice that he is carrying a green blanket in almost every picture...that's because he is carrying that thing almost all the time. yikes.

Normally I wouldn't dare take a picture of a sleeping toddler. But I had to change a middle of the night dirty diaper the other day, and figured, what the heck? he is gonna wake up either way. I thought this was too funny.

Sydney spent the Thanksgiving weekend with us and we all had a blast! The 4 day holiday was filled with lots of eating, laying around, and shopping. I took sydney out on her very first Black Friday adventure. We started around 5AM and split up (such a rookie mistake) so that we could get to two stores right away. So I started out at Walmart. I have actually never attempted a big store like that, and let me tell you--I am no match for those bargain shoppers. I about died of claustrophobia and dipped out before I could even find what I was looking for. Holy cow it was a mad house. Then I called Sydney, who had gone to Kohls. She ended up with her pile of stuff in a corner, waiting for me to come help her. I don't think either of us knew what we were getting into. Although we didn't find everything we had set out to buy, we did have a lot of fun together.

Later that day we went back out with Wes and Jake to attempt ToysRus. Sweet success, we got one of the things I was looking for! We really had a blast running around as a family, and to top off a fun filled weekend, we even went to In N Out! that's right folks, for those of you who don't know (although I don't see how thats possible) We have our very own In N Out Burger right in Orem Utah!!!! I'm tellin ya, Utah is just getting cooler and cooler :)

After all the shopping and eating, there was nothing left to do but pass out on the couch--Jake was holding down the fort. Shopping doesn't drain you when you get to be pushed around in a stroller all day long :)

One morning Wesley and Jake were up before I was, and I came into the kitchen to find them getting breakfast.. they just crack me up--like father like son I guess ;)

We had our first snow day of the season! Jake loved it, and thanks to his many layers, wanted to play out there a lot longer than we did. I can't wait to take him sledding!

The last couple pictures are for Grandma Hurst. Jake loves when his cousin Scott comes over to play!

This wouldn't be a Thanksgiving post if I didn't take a minute to write how grateful I am for all the blessings in my life. I have such wonderful family. Although most of them aren't in Utah, thanks to webchats and cellphones I'm still able to keep in touch with the ones I love. And I am so grateful for my wonderful friends. When I first had Jake, I wondered in some ways if I would be too busy to keep my friends. It was such a big adjustment and I sometimes felt like I was losing my identity in a way. But, thanks to a loving and helpful husband, I've found that I can still have it all. He's been so good about hanging out with Jake whenever I need to get out and have "girl time". Life gets hectic, but I still feel like me--only better. Because I am surrounded by so much love. Even with the ups and downs, with family spread out all over the world, with the toddler tantrums and occasional chaos, I still feel so much joy. And for that, I am one very thankful girl.