Christmas Part II (Christmas Eve)

And here we continue our Christmas picture dump. On Christmas Eve, we filled the day with multiple activities to keep our minds busy in anticipation of Santa's visit that evening.

The first stop was Aunt Suey's house, where we made Linda's famous sugar cookies to leave out for Santa that evening. The batch was large enough that we couldn't even fit it in the mixer. The girls were happy to use their little hands to help mix it, though. (Sorry, Santa, if you got sick...)

Aunt Mari Ann taking a little break to play with Jacer on the floor. What a good aunt. 

I personally wasn't much help...

Watching the snow fall outside the window. White Christmas...YES!!

After Sue's, we made our way to Idaho Falls to Grandpa Dave and Grandma Sharon's house. We spent the afternoon playing with Brady's old marble toy from the 80's, which proved to be way fun (why don't we have such awesome toys anymore?)

We then had dinner all together as family and headed downstairs to have our first round of opening presents! The kids were extremely spoiled and made out with a new trampoline from Grandma and Grandpa, along with new clothes and toys. Whoa. Can we say spoiled? The trampoline news hasn't really set in yet-- but I am sure they will be thrilled when we set it up in the spring.

I promise she was happier than this. Just remember that she isn't the most photogenic...

Cute Aunt Lara. These girls sure love her. 

All of the siblings and spouses minus Clark (he was there-- just not photographed here. It was the first time we have seen him in two years and thus the first time he has met Flor and Jace! Big occasion.) 

That night, back at Grandma Lisa's, we got everything ready for Santa to come!

Throwing out carrots and apples for Rudolph

A note and cookies for Santa

After the kids went to bed, Santa got to enjoy his cookies and milk! :) And they were delicious...

Next up, I am sure what will be a beast of a post...Christmas Day itself!

Christmas 2012 Part 1

I am not going to lie, this Christmas business is going to take up 4 separate posts. I am not going to be offended if you skip them (in fact I won't even know), but I do want to record some favorite pictures and memories for posterity...Posterity, you can thank me later.

We headed to Idaho on the 22nd of December. We weren't sure if we were going to be able to go to Idaho at all because I had a birth mom due with twins and her doctor planned to take them on the 24th of December if she hadn't gone into labor on her own (Christmas Eve, who does that?!) Anyway, just when I had resigned myself to the fact that we wouldn't be going to Idaho, she went into labor and had the babies earlier in the week. WAHOO!!! The timing was perfect (for her too- don't worry it's not all about me).

Had to document Flor having her first sucker post-genetics results. :) She liked it. She does not, however, like chocolate as we have discovered.

He has the best seat in the car...I want one my size.

 Grandma and Poppy welcomed us into their home for the duration of the holidays and while I am sure it wasn't easy to have us for so long, they were fabulous to feed us and care for us.

Hallie watching Poppy play his cello from her little perch against the wall. Poppy was practicing because he was playing in church that day.

Nothing better than a huge bathtub with flowery smelling bubbles 

Ready for church

Hals helping Grandma make some really yummy coconut cupcakes

Flor also liked "helping"

Meanwhile, these two enjoyed catching up on some sleep.

The evening of the 23rd, we went to my Grandma Shawna's house for our traditional Strobel family party and Nativity. My Strobel family is HUGE (by my count: 11 kids, 54 grandkids, 45 greats with 4 on the way) and even though only a fraction of the group comes every year, it is still a lot of people and a lot of fun to catch up with everyone. We had dinner and then a family update from each child in attendance. After that was the nativity, read by my Uncle Mark and acted by whichever children want to participate. We had a hoard of angels and had to beg Hallie, Sadie, and Eliza to be shepherds because no one wanted that job. Haha. 

Devin was in charge of taking pictures because Jennifer and I were in charge of dressing the children up and sending them out at the appropriate time. I have about 3 pictures of the actual nativity and about 15 of me standing against the wall back there. Lovely honey, just lovely. 

See, what did I tell you? Neither of them were thrilled about being a shepherd. 

Please note that our baby Jesus was a 2 year old girl. She really wanted the part-- so of course she got it :)

We are lucky to have  so many loving grandparents in our lives! Both of my grandmothers are still alive and kicking and it is great to watch my kids develop a relationship with them as well. 

More to come.....Lots more.

Oh by Golly...it's a bit late

For memory's sake, here is the Christmas card we sent out this year. Merry Christmas indeed!

One Year Ago...

First day meeting Flor

The past year has been...a whirlwind. There have definitely been ups and downs. There are things I regret and things I am proud of. There have also been many happy moments filled with laughter. Our family has grown and with our newest addition, there have been challenges, but there has also been so much joy. I know without a doubt that, though bringing Flor home has been by far the most challenging thing Devin and I have done in our marriage, it has also absolutely been the right thing. 

I was reminded today in a really powerful way how much the Lord has had his hand in helping us bring Flor into our family. I had been reflecting all day on the fact that it is the one year anniversary of our meeting Flor in Ecuador last year. Then, I came home from work to find that a scrapbook had come in the mail from a wonderful woman who ran Flor's second home, Precious Miracles. This scrapbook is a miracle itself to me as it contains pictures of Flor's life from ages 1-4, most of which I have never seen before. There are pictures starting basically from when I left her in March 2006 until beyond her 4th birthday. Such a precious gift to us. How could she have timed it perfectly to arrive on our 1 year anniversary? I don't think that was coincidence, but another reminder from the Lord. Stacey wrote Flor a very sweet letter in the beginning of the book, talking about her time with her. I was reminded during reading that of another family in Ecuador who had Flor in their home in a foster care type situation for about a year. They had hoped to adopt her, but for some reason, things didn't work out. I wish I had a relationship with that woman so that I could let her know how the little girl she was a mom to is doing. There are many pictures of Flor and this family in the book. I was brought to tears as I thought about the journey Flor has been on to find her way to our family. Such a powerful reminder of our obligation to her and our need to be grateful in the blessings that have been given us. 

Thank you, Stacey, for your amazing gift and for your years of dedication to mothering and caring for Flor. We will forever be grateful.

I was looking back at some pictures today of our arrival there (HERE is the beginning of the daily posts if you are bored and want to go back. I don't think I am ready to read them all, but I did read the first day) and kept thinking how much Flor has changed. She looks so different! Like a big girl, skinnier? (that can't be good!) I don't know, she just looks grown up. Sniff, sniff.

Our 2nd day in Ecuador- December 2011 and on the right is just a few days ago- December 2012

(Also, I know I have not yet mentioned Flor's official diagnosis on the blog...but we recently found out that she has something called 1P36 Deletion Syndrome, a genetic disorder. This means that she is missing part of her first chromosome. We also found out that she does NOT have a fructose intolerance, so her diet has gone back to 100% normal. wahoo for her! We will know more about the 1P36 when we meet with the geneticist at the end of January and I will post more then.)

Extra! Extra! (Pictures that is)

We have been going full blast with the Christmas fun and I have loved every minute. We are making up for last year since we spent our holiday in Ecuador. :)

 Here are a few (okay A LOT) more pictures of some of our activities. I am trying to upload a picture of our daily activity on the Christmas countdown post, but of course there are far more than the one I am posting daily.

Thanksgiving Point Lights:
Early in the month, we were able to go on a wagon ride to see the Christmas Lights at Thanksgiving Point with Che', Landon, Hudson, and Carlie. Hallie was in heaven. We had a great time bundling up and drinking our hot chocolate on the ride. I think we will be making this an annual tradition.

Gingerbread Houses:

This has been an annual tradition for us for a while, but this year we went to SLC to Che' and Landon's so that we could do our "gingerbread" (graham cracker) houses together. We had a great time eating pizza and sugar cookies and then getting to work on our masterpieces... I will let you see how it turned out instead of just telling you: 

Hard at work

A sampling of the candy...perhaps I went a bit overboard??

My lovely house. Looking really good from this angle

And...not so good from this angle. Really, though, I just built a deck and those are little people having the time of their lives. Yeah...

Devin's true masterpiece. He puts the rest of us to shame. Every year.

I apparently didn't get a picture of it all the way done, but you get the idea

Clearly the winner of the evening. Carlie's. 

Hallie and Che's had a garage AND a carport! Pretty fancy.

Temple Square Lights:

After our gingerbread house extravaganza, our little family made our way to Temple Square to see the lights. It was getting late and it was past the kids' bedtime, but I am so glad we went. We were there on a Wednesday night, which was chaos (mutual night=kids everywhere!), but it was still amazing. 

Such a beautiful sight, all lit up

The best we could do. Flor really struggles with the flash on the camera, so getting her eyes even half open is a success!

The Polar Express/Meeting Santa: 

My Uncle Lynn lives about 20 minutes from us and so we get to see him from time to time. He texted me one day to let me know that he and his girlfriend, Barb, were going to be Santa and Mrs. Clause at his ward's party and that he wanted me to bring the kids. I thought this was perfect because I had told the kids that we could go meet Santa, but didn't really want to stand in line at a mall. I just hoped that Hallie wouldn't notice that she knows them since she really is observant (for example, we were eating lunch yesterday while we were out shopping and my cousin Hadley came into the restaurant. We haven't seen Hadley for a while and it's not like we have a really close relationship as he is a teenager and kind of does his own thing...but as soon as he walked in the door, Hallie turned to me and said "Mom, look! It's your cousin!") 

Anyway, we made it to Lynn's church right at 6. His ward sure knows how to throw a party! They had an elf (fully costumed) direct us to a parking spot and then show us where the "train station" was (the back of the church). At the train station, the kids were each given a bell as their boarding pass for the train. There was a conductor (fully costumed again) and a "worker" at the station (also in costume-- see a theme here?) who helped the kids board the train and then off they went in loops all around the parking lot to the doors on the other side of the church, aka the North Pole. When they arrived, Hallie asked me how my flight was. I wasn't sure what she meant, but she told me that the train conductor had told the kids that their parents would be flying to the North Pole to meet them there. She was funny though, because after she genuinely asked how my flight was, she then said, "It's kind of funny that the North Pole is really just on the other side of the church! Not far at all!" Ha ha...

Another group of elves then met as at the door and ushered us in to meet Santa and Mrs. Clause! We waited in line a minute and then the kids got to sit on their laps and have their pictures taken. There was an official photographer and everything. The decorations were amazing and the whole effect was obviously carefully planned and executed. It was pretty great. After sitting on Santa's lap, his helper handed each a bag of little toys. It had a wooden train whistle, a wind up train, and a candy cane. For each kid! Seriously, what in the world?! Who does this?? Apparently this ward. It was pretty amazing. We might just be showing up every year, regardless of whether Lynn is Santa or not. :) Anyway, well worth the trip up there to see how magical it was for the kids. Jace still hasn't stopped talking about the "choo choo". Hallie asked Santa for a trip to Disneyland....we will have to see how that goes!

At the train station waiting for the Polar Express to pick them up

I have zero pictures of Flor with her eyes open....so....

Hals hopped in with some random girls. I am sure everyone was wondering who the heck we were, but they were all very friendly. haha.

Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert: 
Last night, I was able to meet up with my Aunt Mari Ann, Uncle Ron, and Carlie to see the MOTAB Christmas concert. This is a free community event and we put in for tickets EVERY.SINGLE.YEAR and have never gotten any. Mari Ann, on the other hand, seems to have all the luck and has gotten them a few times in the past few years. Since she had two extra tickets, she invited us along. Devin and Tim (Carlie's fiance) were both working, so it worked out great for us to go. I got a babysitter for the kids and it was so nice to just have an evening out without them.

The concert itself was great. It featured Alfie Boe and Tom Brokaw this year. My favorite part was the touching story that Tom Brokaw told about the "Candy Bomber" from post World War 2 (1948) in Germany. The whole thing was really amazing. Great night. My phone died so I don't have any pictures except this one that Carlie took.

Whew. And that is all for now. The countdown is officially ON! Christmas Day...can't wait!