Christmas & such

I have to admit blogging as well as keeping up on my photography has been a struggle lately. I just never seem to be in the mood. Hopefully the drive will come back, but for now I will just have to push through & do it anyway. I already feel sad for the lack of pictures I have from Christmas :( 

Anyways Christmas was a whirl wind of a day! The night before (christmas eve), we went to Sherlock Holmes with Earl & Sandy, and funny enough my family came and sat on the same row. So I guess we saw the movie with both families :) Afterwards we headed to Teppanyaki for a delicious meal with the Kemps, minus Chris, Amy, Truman & Teddy who ended up staying in CA for Christmas. Later we read some Christmas stories & played a game with my family. That night we came up with an awesome idea.. Since Jaxon was so worried/disappointed about the amount of presents he was receiving we decided to round up as many random gifts as we could. He had almost 15 wrapped gifts when we were done! :)

Jeremy woke me up early Christmas morning & we headed over to the Kemps to open presents. Jeremy & Earl sporting rudolf noses.

 Jeremy received new golf clubs.. again. I swear that's what he gets every year, but it does make him extremely happy so I guess it's a good thing. I received some new mac make up that I desperately needed, a new pair of jeans, & some earrings. Sandy received a nook to read on and we gave Earl this family picture that he wanted.

Jeremy really surprised me by getting me a new jeep! Which will really come in handy since I don't have a vehicle. It worked perfectly because he put the car seat we bought to tell our families we are pregnant in the back seat for Earl & Sandy to see. They were very surprised and excited :) 

Around 10:30 we headed over to my parents for more gift opening. Jeremy got from me some new golf shoes, and lots of clothes. Jeremy also got me this furry coat I had been obsessing over :) 

The most entertaining part was watching Jaxon open his many gifts. He seemed sort of confused but mostly happy about his random gifts. Many of them items he already owned but had forgotten about. haha

One of his "special" presents below. He was disappointed since it was heavy he figured it was something good. That kid cracks me up!

 We gave my dad some new work shoes, & my mom running shoes, a top, and jewelry. You can also see my cute chevron wrapping paper in the background.

 It took nearly 5 min to get these two close enough to snap this picture.

 My family was equally surprised when they opened the car seat telling them grandchild # 3 was on the way!

We then headed to Kemp's church for a little Christmas spirit. Afterwards we enjoyed Sandy's famous Christmas lunch which includes: ham, funeral potatoes, peas, rolls and layered jello. It is so delicious & something we look forward to every year! 

We then headed back over to my parents house (as you can see we went back & forth a lot, we are lucky they live so close!) for dinner & our usual Christmas eve festivities which we couldn't get everyone together for until Christmas night. My sweet grandparents came and gave us all a monetary gift. They are always so generous. 

Since my family is so large we draw names each year & exchange them all together. Jeremy got some golf balls from Prezley & I got a really cool ombre button up shirt from Meghan.

That night was a blast as we played two fun games, that are becoming my favorite of Christmas traditions. The first is a white elephant with gift cards that I always love using after xmas. Jeremy ended up with one to Sports Authority & mine was for CPK. Others got Barnes & Noble, Target, Boondocks, & Forever 21. The second game everyone was given 15 pennies and about 30 seconds to look at a large loot of items. Then the auction begins as you bid against others for items you want. It is really funny to see what everyone uses their $$ on. Jeremy & I ended up with fuzzy socks, a pack of martinelli's, peanut M&M's, bath salts, a head lamp, and some clothes. I think the most popular items ended up being a case of slim fast, & a j crew tie.

These are the only pictures I got that night of Hawkes & Atlas playing in the tent my mom had given Hawkes for Christmas :)

It is so fun to be all together with family. We did plenty of other fun things together but since I don't have pictures I have sort of forgotten. All I know is Jeremy played a lot of Donkey Kong & we all got the flu one day :( The only thing that could have made Christmas any better is if it snowed.. I was really sad not to see any white stuff the whole time I was in Utah!

While in town we also celebrated New Years eve. We went with friends to Market Street grill for a delicious dinner & then over to the Ossmen's for a fun night with treats & a hilarious game. I wish I took some photos but alas I never even took my camera out of the bag :(

I did at least snap a photo in my sparkly gold dress. I'm sure you are as disappointed as I was Jeremy didn't pack something more festive than this.

On New Years day I convinced my mom to go back to an old tradition & have crab for dinner. It was really something to look forward to, Jeremy especially couldn't wait. He did seem a little less excited when he found out I offered to purchase the crab.. but said it was totally worth it in the end! We found the best giant crab at Costco.

Enjoying our delicious New Years dinner :)

On our way back from Utah we stopped by Chris & Amy's for a little holiday get together since we missed them over Christmas. We took Truman out shopping for a new toy which was so awesome since he is at such a fun age! Chris & Amy spoiled us, getting Jeremy a really nice new golf bag & me a bunch of the cloth bound penguin classic books! I am so excited to have half the collection & need to get the rest to decorate our place.

Well I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, seems sad that we have to wait a whole year to celebrate again! 

Stay tuned as we have plenty of other exciting news an announcements we need to share!