Where do I even begin.

This is going to be a really long post because so much has happened from the last time that I blogged I really don't know where to begin. I'll start with the bad news first. The Sunday before Christmas my mom fell on my parents hard wood floor and broke the ball of her hip off. Terrible, huh? She had a partial hip replacement that Sunday and was in the hospital until Christmas Eve. She is such a trooper. Even though I'm sure she was exhausted and tired every time we went to visit her in the hospital and throughout the holiday weeks she still never, ever complained. She sat in my dads office chair with the wedge between her legs and we would wheel her around to wherever the party was taking place. This is the best picture I have of her in her chair with wedge. It seems like recovery is going well. I just got a text from her that said she got her staples removed today and that in 4 weeks she can get rid of her walker and the wedge. I'm sure it was so hard for her to sit back and not be able to do anything but she appeared to handle it well. I know I am praying and hoping that her recovery will go smooth and quickly. Love you mom!!

On Christmas Eve Danny had to work until about 1 so after he got home we went up to Tremonton to Grandma and Grandpa Simmons house. We ate and then had a really nice program that his Grandma put together. The kids acted out the Christmas story and Sam was the perfect baby Jesus. He just layed there and played with his feet the whole time. 

We each played a part in the program. Danny sang a rousing rendition of "We Three Kings" with a couple other guys. Monica, Amanda, Amy and Myself sang oh shut, I can't remember what we sang. We were pretty quite. I sang quite because I can't sing worth beans. Especially with those Simmons girls, they all have great voices. It was a great program. Thanks Grandma for putting it all together. We left early so that we could spend some time with my family.

Usually on Christmas Eve my family goes to a big Christmas party with my moms side of the family. Since my mom had just gotten released from the hospital and her and my dad weren't going to go to the party we all decided to stay at my parents and have a nice night in. When we left Tremonton Sam fell asleep and slept forever. This is what he did the rest of Christmas Eve and most of Christmas morning for that matter. 

We wanted him to be baby Jesus at the live nativity we did at my parents but he kept sleeping and I wasn't going to wake him. We had a nice program at my parents as well. There are a lot of pictures from both parties so I had to put it in a slide show at the end of the post. After the nativity program my brother-in-law Mark got a Santa suit and dressed up as Santa. He did a great job and we all got a great laugh out of it. I think most of the kids knew it was him but it was still really fun. After Santa left my mom has this really cool chime set that we played.  Everybody gets a chime with a number on it and then there is a huge music book that has Christmas songs with numbers by the notes. So we played the chimes for a bit after and I loved it. I thought it was a lot of fun. You could really tell what the songs were to so that made it even more fun. After the chimes we all got our Christmas pj's. My mom made a lot of pajamas. So impressive I know. Most of the made pajamas were BYU but Danny and I got University of Utah pajamas. Loved them, thanks mom!! We also each got a great pair of pajamas from Dan's mom. I love that tradition and plan on doing it for our kids as well. Thanks Camille! We finally headed home around 10:30. When we got home Dan and I watched Elf and finished wrapping the rest of our gifts to one another. It was a great night and I actually got a couple pictures of Danny and I and the three of us together. 

 

Christmas Morning 

Sam woke up at about 7ish Christmas morning so I fed him and then we got ready to head up to our parents for the day. Dan had the great idea to wait and open our gifts to one another after we got home from our parents. I loved the idea! It was so fun because the excitement lasted all day long. We started off at my parents house and watched all of the grandkids open gift after gift after gift after gift. You get the idea. There were SOOOOO many gifts at my parents it was ridiculous. There were 3 families there with 3-4 kids each so it was just crazy. We usually do Christmas in our basement b/c there is more open space but since my mom couldn't go downstairs we did everything upstairs which made it a little more tight. It was a lot of fun and Sam actually slept most of the morning. So unlike him to sleep so well like that but I wasn't complaining. 

We left to head over to the Simmons at about 10:30. We hung out there for a few hours, ate, opened gifts, played rockband and just hung out. It was a lot of fun. Danny's parents were pooped after a busy day. I thought this was such a cute picture.

We headed back over to my parents around 3:30 for a delicious Christmas dinner. I love yams and turkey have I ever mentioned that? It started snowing really bad that night so we took off before it got even worse. When we got home we opened up our gifts to one another. It was a great/busy day. We are SO blessed it is ridiculous. We feel so grateful for the gospel in our lives. All Christmas season I would just look at Sam and try to imagine what kind of baby Jesus was. Have you ever wondered that? I bet he was a pretty good/calm little guy. Sorry for the super long post but I just had a lot to say. Enjoy all the pictures!!