Christmas time was here

Christmas has come and gone and it was a good one this year. We started off the celebrations by making a gingerbread house with James on the 17th. I think this will now be our new family tradition.

Our Gingerbread House

The following day, Sunday,  we went to Tracy's parents house for their annual Christmas concert. It is always fun to go and see cousins and listen to great music, stories and spiritual thoughts. Then Monday evening we headed down to the Energy Solutions Arena for the Annual Christmas Sing along. This year the guest performer was Alex Boye. He is awesome. 

James at the Sing -Along

On Tuesday James ended up with a fever. It was a great day for cuddling, well, it became a great day for cuddling cause that is all he wanted to do. On Wednesday we did a day long shopping trip. I always want to do shopping early, but it never works out. At least we had an enjoyable day and ended with a dinner at Red Lobster and watching it snow. Then on Friday was my family Christmas Party. We packed up the car for the weekend and headed to the party. First we stopped to get one last gift for James and to give Grandpa Dee (Tracy's step-grandpa) his gift. We enjoyed a short visit with him. We arrived a little late to the party, but just right to still get some food. Food always goes fast at my family parties. We did gift exchange, family pictures and just enjoyed each others company. James and his cousin, who is a few months younger, were very cute playing together.

After the party we headed down to Tracy's parent's house for Christmas eve. We did Christmas at their house on Christmas eve. Ate the traditional breakfast of waffles, watched sports, opened presents and hung out all day in our new pj's. 

Pile of Presents (Pop)

James enjoying his new toys

Eating dinner in his Christmas pj's.
The front of them say "What Santa doesn't bring me grandma will."

Sunday morning we got up early and headed to my mom's for church. It was fun seeing some of the same people that were there when I was growing up. After church we had my mom's yummy breakfast casserole and watched my little siblings open presents. James had a couple he hadn't opened yet as well. They even surprised us with a little gift (a cute picture frame) and James with some hot wheel cars. After opening presents we all took naps then had dinner and we headed home.

We had an enjoyable weekend and felt very lucky to spend it with family. Who knows if next year we'll be close enough to do so. Today I finally got around to finish putting everything away. James has been sick with a cold since Saturday and yesterday, I was feeling sick so things didn't get done till today. Now I just have to decide when I want to take down the Christmas decorations.

Having fun in his room after I got his toys organized.

He really loves his new train set.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas. P.S. I'm hoping to get our cards mailed out tomorrow, so don't worry I haven't forgotten anyone.

James' little jig

James is getting better and better at standing every day. He can now stay standing for several seconds and stand up on his own. He loves to do a little dance when he's standing. I finally was able to catch it on video. He's so silly.

Our living room doesn't have very good lighting, 

so the video turned out a bit hard to see. 

Christmas Cards

It is that time of year again for Christmas Cards. Since we cleaned off our computer several months ago, I lost every ones address. Please email me your address and I will send you a Christmas card in return. :)

aliciasuethomson at gmail dot com

Thanks

A Rather Blustery Day!

This is the best video I could find of this with out it being in a different language.

A couple of days ago we had a rather blustery day, well night/morning. I felt a bit like Winnie the Pooh during it and even the pages of his book were being destroyed just like the cities around here. The storm hit really hard in Davis and Weber counties. Though Salt Lake was on the edge of the storm, it sure left some damage here. Luckily not as bad as other cities. I'm talking about wind as strong as a Category 2 Hurricane.

My apartment building, which I manage, took quite the beating. We woke up to part of our fence down on top of a car and shingle every where. After not getting much sleep because of the wind and this horrible banging noise, I just wanted to crawl right back into bed. Tracy actually braved the still very windy morning and found the fence down, garbage flying around the parking lot and the front lawn littered with shingles. Oh, and the horrible noise that kept waking us up was a couple of pieces of siding about to be ripped off the building. They were both still hanging on, but you definitely didn't want to be any where near them if/when they flew off.

Tracy moved pieces of the fence and picked up some trash. Maintenance stopped by shortly after Tracy left for work. He works out 2 other properties besides mine, so he just did a quick look and moved on. Later he came back and cleaned up everything and took down the siding before they came off.

My roof is now sporting a nice gaping whole, siding and fence pieces are sitting behind the behind the building. Glad I didn't have to be the one doing the clean up or paying to have the things repaired. Plus, I'm glad it wasn't any worse. Though I do feel very sad for those who had trees fall on their house/car and who are without power. Hope they all can recover from this quickly. They will be in my prayers.