Christmas 2010

Well another 3 months have came on gone. Life in the Lillywhite household continues to be filled with love, laughter, and a lot of busyness. I guess that is just how it goes when your living life. I can honestly say I am quite possibly the happiest I can ever remember being. This year Christmas came unlike any other Christmas we have had. Texas greeted the winter holidays with a few days in the 80's. Luckily for us Christmas was a little cooler and it rained on Christmas eve. We had big plans to go home for Christmas but were not able to go. We missed everyone, and had to fight the waves of sadness that came as we faced the reality of Christmas without extended family around. This though brought with it the excitement of a little Christmas with just us. We spent Christmas eve at some friends of ours and filled our tummies up with all sorts of deliciousness. It feels so good to have friends that we can share the holidays with, kind of a pseudo-family I guess. Christmas morning the kids were awesome and let us sleep in until almost 8am. Elle even slept through the night in her own bed (big news in our house). I think it may be due to the fact that she was scared of running into Santa should she venture out of her room. We had a fire in the fireplace both last night and this morning. It was awesome, especially once we figured out how to fully open the damper, (my hair still smells like campfire, and Tom likes it ;) ). It was such a fun Christmas morning, we just took our time and spent a good hour and a half opening up and playing with all the toys. Riley was excited to get a Nerf gun set from Santa, along with some Lego's. Brooke got her Fur-real kitty and a whole bunch of princess stuff. Elle got her 7 Disney princess barbie set and all sorts of other goodies. The big present for the family was the Wii that we bought the kids (no way was I letting Santa get credit for that one). We spent the whole day today cuddled on the couch watching movies, playing with toys and snacking. Poor Elle is sick again, tummy troubles, and Brooke is complaining of an earache so I am hoping we don't have an ear infection brewing. But all that considered it really has been a great Christmas. I was surprised by Tom with a Iphone 4. Sadly for me I accidentally came upon it 2 days before Christmas and ruined the surprise for myself. It actually turned out great because I was able to do Facetime with my family on Christmas eve. Almost as good as being there....almost. The best part of all of this is I have a healthy (mostly) and happy (again...mostly) family. We have the gospel of Jesus Christ and are surrounded near and far by those who love us. Merry Christmas!!!

Hello again....

Wow, how fast time flies by with all the holidays and other busyness. We had a great Thanksgiving here in Colorado. It was so nice to be on our own time schedule with the meal and all but it was also soooooo quiet. We were able to go home the next weekend for Josh and Steffany's wedding and it was so nice to have everyone together. It was the 1st time in several years that all 8 of the siblings were together and it was a super fast trip but filled up my soul for at least a couple of weeks. Tom and I decided that he would take off the day after new years and we would head out to Utah for the New Year. Christmas was memorable. We had Papa Murphys for dinner on Christmas Eve and had a great Christmas day. We took the kids to see "The Tale Of Despereaux." Its a cute movie and movie popcorn and Christmas just go together. It was a fun day though we missed our families horribly. Luckily we knew we were going "home" in less than a week and that gave us something to look forward too. We left Wednesday night for Utah and Elle as usual got diarrhea about 1 1/2 into the drive. In Aspen Colorado we pulled over for the second time to change her and Tom ran into a grocery store to get some "bum cream". I started changing her not realizing what exactly I was getting into. Brooke started dry heaving.....literally, and I got poo all over myself. My hands and all of my left thigh were covered in a horrible stinky mess. Elle was also covered and at this point screaming at me. Tom came back around this time and after a change of clothes for both Elle and I. We made it to Frank and Amy's house in Payson around 1:30am. Tom and I shared a new years kiss in the car though it was less than romantic considering he was chowing down on some dill pickle sunflower seeds....blech! Frank and Amy were sweet enough to let us camp out at their house and we were able to spend sometime with them the next day. In fact Brooke and Ava got their picture taken at kiddie kandids for free and were soooo excited.
Brooke is still talking about "her" Ava. That evening we went to my parents house for a "New Years" party and got our "karaoke" on.Wow, Tom was never so excited to be married to me for all eternity...but it was fun and I think we all had a good laugh. The next day (Friday) we all just kind of hung out and played some games, then we went on a couples date to Tepanyaki and I had my first sushi. I ate part of a cucumber roll, it had eel, and had fish eggs in it. All night I just kept envisioning baby fish in my tummy. Riley almost died when I told him about it. After dinner we all went to watch Valkyrie. I actually really liked it though as a mom it made me worry about what my kids might see and have to experience in their lives. The next day was Saturday and we went sledding and then had dinner at Jed and Suzanne's. It was so fun to see everyone but as usual went by much to fast. I had wanted to see Krystal and her cute little baby girl, but we just ran out of time. Luckily we did run into Chris and Luke (he is getting sooo big) sledding so that was nice. Any how we are back and you all can expect posts on a nearly daily basis.