"Christmas Nembers"

A couple of months ago when it snowed, Caleb asked if he could go
outside and make a snow angel. 

Thinking that he couldn't have remembered about that from last year, I asked him how he knows about snow angels.  He confidently replied, it's in my "snow nembers" (memories).  Hopefully next year these things will be in our "Christmas nembers"...

The Seal party, where Caleb picked his nose on Santa's (skinny teenage) lap.

 The Hill party (my mom's side).  I took the star that hangs from Caleb's bedroom ceiling and had him be the "star" in the nativity.  It was adorable and actually he's

mostly all I could see from where I was sitting.

Rainbow gardens in Ogden. My mom takes all of the girls in the family there every year the week before Christmas.  We eat at the restaurant, then shop in the beautiful boutiques. So fun! 

Jungle Jims playground.  This is what Caleb's preschool did for their Christmas-time fieldtrip. Caleb's non-fun mom didn't want to go on the rides (most of the mom's didn't!), so Caleb asked Teacher Joy to go on a lot of the rides with him. 
 I need to work on my fun factor.

We had to tell Caleb not to put his mouth on the poles and gates at the playground. Literally. Yuck!

Maybe that's why Caleb got really sick, and on Christmas Eve night, I ended up at my parents party without him and Justin (whimper). 

I think my family would've died  if I ditched the party too.

To ease the pain of missing his mommy, and several hours of fun at Grandma and Grandpa's house, I suggested that Justin take Caleb to his sister Paulette's house for a few minutes, where some of his family were having dinner.  So they stayed in town and in the end, although we were apart, everyone had an alright time.

 (My baby looks so sick!)

Our little guy had been counting down the days to Christmas, but when the day came, he felt so sick he didn't even remember it was Christmas! I couldn't believe it.  We didn't remind him, because he was crying and his throat hurt so bad.  I was bracing myself for a terrible day. We gave him some medicine, then Justin said when he was feeling better, he could open presents.  All of the sudden, it was as though Caleb's tears froze in place on his cheeks.  His crying stopped, and he ran into the front room and noticed Santa had come! And that was that.  The rest of the morning was filled with the typical joys of stockings, unwrapping presents, and taking pictures. Caleb felt completely fine the rest of the day. 
 I really felt like it was a Christmas miracle!

We even got to visit my parents, since my boys had missed them the night before.  We had a nice and relaxing afternoon there.

Caleb's night ended with some new Christmas pajamas. 
Surprise, surprise, they're Thomas.