Christmas Top 10

Christmas came and went with all of its festive busyness and I didn't blog once.  So now I could either spend a week catching up and giving everything it's own proper blog post or just copy my friend and do a short and sweet top 10 list.  I chose the latter.  So here it goes... In sort of random, sort of chronological order...

1. Santa
It's a Memphis tradition of ours to visit Santa at the Bass Pro Shop.  Free pictures with Santa, candy canes, and tons of fancy toys to play with.  We went early in the month on a rainy, Tuesday evening so we practically had the place to ourselves.

2.  Christmas program
Willa's preschool put on a Christmas program.  They sang 12 or so Christmas songs and then we ate cookies, cookies, and more cookies.  Every child was instructed to bring 12 cookies to share.  Willa was such a ham.  I say it all the time.  I'm not sure where she gets her outgoing personality from.  As soon as the curtain opened, she started blowing kisses to the audience.  She sang every word of every song loud and clear and did all of the motions.  She was funny to watch.  And in the middle of the show, she hollered out, "Make Clark watch me."  Too funny.  Clark was into the show for a few songs and then lost interest.

3. Orlando Temple
Matt, the kids, and I flew to Florida on December 12.  We stayed in Orlando for five nights.  While we were there, we spent a special day at the Orlando Temple.  It was the first time I'd ever been to the temple with my mom and grandma.  Three generations and my hubby.  Like I said, special day.  My sister, Amanda, watched my kids.  Thank you so much!

4. Disneyworld
While we were in Florida, we went to Disney.  We spent two nights at the Art of Animation Resort in a Lion King themed suite and loved it.  We spent the first day exploring the resort.  It was so cool.  There are 4 decked out areas: Cars, Lion King, Finding Nemo, and the Little Mermaid.

 

 

We spent the next day at Disney with my entire family - 10 adults and 5 kids.  Willa loved every ride and rode everything she could.  She was tall enough to ride everything except Space Mountain.  She also loved meeting the princesses.  Clark was sick.  He enjoyed the rides he went on, but also spent a lot of time sleeping and crying.  My mom took him back to the hotel for 4 or 5 hours in the middle of the day to give him a break.

Then the third day we enjoyed the Finding Nemo pool and a late check out.

5.  Florida Family
After Disney, we spent two more nights at my sister's house in Orlando with my entire family.

6. Snow
We flew from Florida to Utah on December 17.  While we were in Utah, I think we managed to take part in every snow storm Utah got.  We just followed the storms around the state as we visited Matt's family.  And when you're on a Christmas vacation with a 3.5 year old and 1.5 year old, that's perfect!

7.  Utah Family

Matt got to see 6 of his 7 siblings and his parents while we were in Utah.  The kids and I spent some of our nights in Richfield, some in SLC, and one in Provo.  Matt went hunting with his Dad and Stephen for a few days.  Unfortunately, Matt, Clark and I got the flu at the start of our trip.  So Matt's hunting trip was pretty miserable for him.

Willa and Grandpa Wetzel after church



8. Christmas Eve and Day

We spent Christmas in Richfield with Matt's family.  Two of his brothers and two of his sisters were also there. We had a traditional Christmas Eve complete with acting out the Christmas story, a ginger bread house, and carols around the piano.

 

 

9.  Temple Square Lights
I really wanted to take Willa and Clark to Temple Square to see the lights and the SLC temple while we were in SLC.  But Matt, Clark and I had the flu at the start of the trip so we weren't up for it then.  And at the end of our trip when we were in Salt Lake again, I was feeling exhausted (see #10) and it was snowing.  I would have skipped it, but Matt convinced me to go and I'm glad we did.

10. I think this picture speaks for itself.  July 20 is the big day.  We actually found out in November, but shared the news with our families while we were visiting in December.  And since I'm writing this so late, we already found out it's a BOY!

And can you believe, Matt was around for all of that.  ALL OF IT.  He had an "elective" month which meant he could "elect to study" or something like that.  He moonlighted a couple weeks and spent a couple weeks with us.