CHRISTMAS 2015

I would love to say that Christmas was amazing in every way because it feels sort of wrong to say anything but that.  I am completely aware that I have so many reasons to feel blessed!  On top of that list,  a happy and healthy family which is seriously all that matters!  But why does it seem like celebrating Christmas pulls us in every possible direction and wears us out so much that there isn’t any time left to really enjoy each other or reflect as much as we should about why we are celebrating?!  It also seems like so many people put so much work into making Christmas so wonderful and then it just flies by and is over before we know it which always leaves me feeling a little bummed.  I always miss my family even more after the holidays.  We've had all this time together...but I never quite get the quality time I want with anyone!

It was fun to see the kids excited, great to see them playing with their cousins, and I even got to participate in my favorite Christmas tradition…playing games.  But you could say I went into the holiday season already a little exhausted.  As I mentioned in my last post, Jake has been hurt and not working since December 11^th.   Whenever he is at home, he is laying on a heating pad on the couch.  He was only able to go to 2 out of 4 of our Christmas gatherings and he had to spend the majority of Christmas day laying in my mom’s bed.   I really tried to keep a good attitude but you could say I eventually started to feel a little sorry for myself.  It’s already hard work to travel from place to place with little kids, to pack and unpack the car, to keep an 18 month old from putting everything in her mouth, etc.  And to do it by myself while low on sleep had me feeling a little less than merry at times.   We gave the kids a good Christmas though and were even able to enjoy ourselves whenever we had the chance.   But we definitely miss having Jake at 100%!  He’s getting a little better every day and we are hoping for a full recovery soon!

Well now that I got that out of the way, here is a little recap of our events!

Christmas Eve Morning we opened gifts from each other and spent a lot of the day in our jammies.  

There was a beautiful snow that morning so Jett got to go out and play!

Christmas Eve was spent in Wahoo with the Akerson family!

With so many grandchildren (two babies not pictured), we have to make a line with tape for them to stay behind while Mema hands out gifts.

I have to share a story about the pic below.   Jake and I were sitting on the couch with our nephew Marek.  We started talking about how the three of us were all middle children and Marek said, "It's like you are a ghost...no one knows you are there!"  Too funny.  Being a middle child can be rough!

Jett loves having so many cousins to run around with!

Christmas morning was actually really great.  Both kids slept in and I had time to go downstairs and make breakfast before anyone got up.  Also had time to plug the tree in and put Christmas music on before anyone was ready to come downstairs.  I love being able to start my day like that (me waking up before them and being excited for them to get up).  Jett checked right away to see if Santa ate the milk and cookies that he had left out and was really pumped to see that he had!  

Jett's big Santa gift was the parking garage that he had been asking fore.  He was so excited and has been playing with it ever since.  Joss got a "Little People Disney Castle."  

We got to my moms in time to have lunch there followed by opening gifts.

Joss went to bed early for us and Jett played with his cousins so we were able to finally play some games with my siblings!  We drove back to Lincoln later that night.

Saturday we stayed home and regrouped a little.  On Sunday I took the kids to the "Foy Christmas" in North Bend and Jake stayed home to rest. 

This morning we were all kind of happy to be back in somewhat of a routine.  Bring on 2016!

IT'S almost CHRISTMAS:

December has been such a fun month so far!  Jett had his Sunday School Christmas program at the beginning of the month.  Mema, Papa, Grandma, Letti, Brittany, Ben, Rachel, Taylor, and Katie all came to watch him.  He had a great time and told me after that it was "So much fun!"

The following weekend Grandma came over to decorate Christmas Cookies.  We were just going to be boring and use white frosting with sprinkles.  But before we knew it Jake was whipping up several different colors using beets for the red, turmeric for the yellow, spirulina for the green, etc.  Who knew you could use super foods to dye frosting!  It's the best having a creative and resourceful dad!

We also had a fun night taking the kids Christmas shopping for each other.  Jett is getting Joss a doll bed and Joss is getting Jett a tunnel for his train set.  After shopping we went out for dinner and then looked at Christmas lights.  That will likely become a family tradition.

Even though it's been a busy month, we've spent plenty of time being lazy in our jammies and watching lot of Christmas movies.

Over this last weekend we had the Marxsen Christmas (my mom's side).  Jake didn't get to go (more on that later) but it was great to see everyone and I only lost Jett a couple of times. 

My Grandma Marxsen gave me what I'm sure will be my favorite gift this year!  A book written by her about her life.  If you know my Grandma, you know that she has an awesome memory and tells the best stories.  It is such a gift for all of her grandkids to have this.  There are chapters about her childhood, meeting my grandpa, having kids, different jobs that she had, etc.  And she writes exactly like she tells stories (blunt and hilarious).

Joss's newest "trick" is winking.  It's my favorite!  

She is becoming quite the little poser.

Monday night Jake and I got to meet up with several of my high school friends and their significant others.   It was so great to see everyone and always hard to get that many people together around the holidays so we felt very lucky!

Thanks to Rachel and Katie for babysitting!

Unfortunately Jake has been out of commission for a while now due to an old wrestling injury/disc problem that tends to sneak back up every once in a while if he doesn't get in the gym often enough to keep the area strengthened.  So unfortunately this flair-up of his old injury in his neck/upper back has kept him from working since December 11th and he will likely be off till at least January.  I wish I could say he was having fun with his "time off" but he's been pretty miserable (laying down) with slight improvements every day.  I know it's bad because he has a high pain tolerance and taking this much time off work makes him sick.  He's lucky he has an awesome business partner who is not only taking care of him, but taking care of his patients.  It is one of those injuries where it will just take time to fully heal.  Jett asked Santa to bring his dad a new neck.  Fingers crossed:).  

Merry Christmas to everyone reading this and we hope you enjoy your time with family and friends!  We know we will.  

THANKSGIVING AND MORE:

We had a good Thanksgiving this year.    Our daycare was closed the day before so I took some extra time off and enjoyed some one on one time with each kid (staggered their naps).  It's so nice to do that every once in a while!

There was some freezing rain on the day of Thanksgiving so our gathering with Jake's extended family was postponed till the day after.  We had a really good day at home.  The kids started the day with watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade!

We put Joss down for a nap early and then Jett and Jake decorated some headpieces for the kids to wear! After that we started making our own feast.  I am usually the person who takes the fruit to a family gathering so it was weird (and kind of fun) to prepare our own Thanksgiving meal.  

It was nice to actually enjoy our kids and spend quality time with them on a Holiday!  Made me feel extra thankful to be so present with them!

Later that night we went over to Simaneks (once we realized the roads weren't going to get too bad).  My mom and Alli were over there so it was fun to see everyone.  Jett had so much to play with over there and told me after that he "HAD REALLY FUN THERE!"

Friday we went to the Thompson's to celebrate Thanksgiving with the Torren's family!  There were about 30 people there and a lot of little kids.  Everyone was well entertained!  

On Saturday we went to my mom's to celebrate with my immediate family!   It was our first Holiday at the new house and it was great!  But honestly, Holidays with two little ones are exhausting (Joss is at the stage where we have to watch her every move and she usually only wants her mom when we are in big groups).  I think I struggle because I like to always give everyone my undivided attention and that is just so hard to do with kids.  I feel like I never get to talk to anyone as much as I would like and it's hard for me when I feel like I'm not fully engaged in conversations.  Meanwhile I also want to be enjoying my kids.  Is this something I can get better at or will I just stop caring?

Here are a few other pictures from the last few weeks.  Jett got to go to his first movie in the theatre with Jake.  They saw Peanuts.  Jake thought it was horrible but they had fun!

Whether these two are getting along or not, they are usually found right next to (or on top of) each other!

Joss has been a little more into getting dressed up (and especially loves shoes) lately.  You can tell how special/big she feels when she puts something on that she thinks is pretty!

Since yesterday was the first of December we started our daily Advent activities.  Hopefully this will make the Christmas season more fun for the kids, give us some extra motivation to do things, and remind everyone what the season is about!

For the first day the kids got to put on their new Christmas jammies and read some of our favorite Christmas stories!

Speaking of Christmas, sometime Jett will jokingly call himself a "troublemaker."  The other day at daycare his friend Mady said, "You're a troublemaker."  Jett responded, "No I'm not trouble anymore because I want a parking garage for Christmas!"