Happy Holidays!

It seems like this holiday season was full of activity. From Matilda's birth to the New Year we have been busy. A lot happened but at the same time it seemed to fly by. I didn't mention in my previous posts my little brother Zach came home from his mission only 2 days after Matilda was born. He got home just in time for Thanksgiving. He is our new roommate at my parents house and it has been fun having him around. He brings a whole new dynamic to the house. Staci and her family also came out for the holiday. Despite being overly tired from just giving birth it was really nice to have the whole family together.

Andy and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary on Dec. 17th! We had a good anniversary aside from the fact that we spent the whole day driving from one doctors office to the next. Avery had fallen off a bench in my mom's room the night before and broke her arm. So we spent the whole day doing x-rays and trying to figure out if it was broken or not. It was weird that she broke a bone falling only about a foot and a half onto the carpet. Anyway, she was a trooper and hardly complained about it. On a side note, our last two anniversaries have seemed to bring bad luck. Last year I was in the beginning stages of a miscarriage and this year Avery broke her arm. We are hoping this is not the beginning of an unfortunate trend.

Next came Christmas. This was one of the best Christmas's ever! Not only because it was the first year that Avery was really able to enjoy it but also because Andy and I made out like bandits as far as gifts go. We spent Christmas Eve at my parents house with the whole family including my aunt Melanie's family. It was a lot of fun. We did a gift exchange, a nativity play and had lots of good food. My parents bought presents for everyone this year. To our amazement they bought Andy and I a flat screen tv! Best present ever! Then when we went over to my mother in laws for Christmas day, we unwrapped a blue ray player from them! Needless to say we are pretty excited about our new set up. I finally feel like we are catching up with technology.

Before heading over to my mother in law's, Avery had Christmas morning here. She was so funny! She didn't want to open any presents until everyone in the house was in the room watching her. Then she insisted on going at her own (very slow) pace. If anyone tried to speed her up by telling her to open another present she would shake her finger and say "Not yet, papa (or any other name), Not yet." We have a picture of her in the middle of saying telling Papa that.

We had New Year's Eve at my parents house as well. All the brothers and sisters came over and it was a lot of fun. Rachel made some delicious potato soup and jalapeno poppers. We played games until 2am. Avery, being the party girl that she is, was the only small child to stay up with us. I definitely don't win the best mom award on that one.

All in all we had a great holiday season and feel so blessed to have so much support surrounding us. It is so nice to have family close by. Happy belated Holiday's everyone.