Christmas Vacation - part 5

Colby wanted to take some pictures of me in front of the tree. I'm such a goof!

We were all feeling great the last week we were there and got to go visit family. Sadee got to hang with her cousin Kylee.

Sadee liked feeling the snow.

One warm afternoon we decided to make an igloo. My parents have this cool brick-maker that I used to make igloos when I was a kid. Ryan and Tanner started off and then they looked like they were having so much fun that Colby and I joined in.

Christmas day

We waited to open presents until late in the morning so all those who were feeling sick could get some more sleep (including me!). Colby felt like junk that morning and had no desire to open presents. So he just laid on the floor next to us with a blanket over him and a puke bowl next to him. I felt so bad for him!

Tanner was more than happy to open presents. Go Tanner!

My family was awesome and helped out so much with Sadee. We really appreciated it! We were busy comforting and cleaning up after our other sick kids. At one point on Christmas day, Sadee even fell alseep on uncle Bob's shoulder.

By late in the afternoon, we were all feeling much better, especially the kids. They got to enjoy opening their presents. Sadee even got into the whole present thing. She loved tearing off the paper strip after strip.


It was a beautiful mess by the end of the day!

We got a big storm Christmas night. What a wonderful way to end the day!

Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve we had our traditional family party. We've been doing this since as long as I can remember.

We have a tradition where we each get to open one present. And every year it is..... pajamas! We change in our pajamas and wear them the rest of the evening. After 8 years, Tanner is still surprised every Christmas eve. We'll see if he remembers next year.

Jada wants to be a boy and likes boy things. So we all kept telling her that her pajamas looked like boy pajamas so she would keep them on. She gave us a funny look, but she kept them on. I snapped this picture at the same time that her dad leaned over and gave her a kiss. I thought it turned out so cute.

Sadee loves sitting in rocking chairs.

Some of the fam

Tanner and Dax had fun setting out the treats for Santa. They left him cookies, along with a diet Coke and a Bio 35 pill (a weight loss & energy vitamin), because they said he needs to lose weight (and that he needed some extra energy). Too funny!

Christmas Vacation - part 2

Ryan took the boys sledding with my cousin and her boys while I stayed home taking care of a sick little girl.

Ryan & Colby

Colby

Tanner

Christmas Vacation - part 1

We stopped in St. George to stay the night. Before we checked in at the hotel, we thought it would be fun to drive by the temple. There were lots of lights on the grounds and so we got out and walked around and checked out the visitor's center. We had never actually stopped at the temple, just driven by it. So we were glad we had the chance!

The afternoon that we arrived at my parents' house, it had been snowing! So, we got our stuff put away and went straight outside to play in the snow. We built a cool-looking snowman. The boys hiked up the hill in the backyard to find sticks for it's arms and smile. I think Ryan and I had more fun rolling the balls for the snowman than the boys did.

We got to visit my sister and her family. Tanner LOVED playing with Max (the dog). They must have played for two hours straight!

Colby and his cousin get along really well. They are best buds and played together all day and night. I caught them hiding in this corner behind the couch. They didn't like being found!

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Christmas 2008 will definitely be one we won't forget. We spent almost 2 weeks in Utah visiting family. We stayed with my parents at their house. My cousin Kris, her husband, and her two teenage boys were visiting from Florida and stayed at my parents' house too. It was so fun seeing them again and hanging out. On our way up to Utah, we ate in a few restaurants and I think Sadee caught some kind of nasty bug because our first morning there she woke up early puking. And she puked ALL DAY LONG! Then that evening Tanner got sick with the same thing. Then the next day Colby was sick. And Sadee was still sick. Then in the middle of the night on Christmas eve I got sick, and my cousin's son got sick and so did my neice. Eventually it spread through out almost everyone in the house. Only my cousin, her oldest son, and my aunt that lives there didn't catch it. It was CRAZY!!!!!! The good thing was that "the bug" only lasted 12 hours. Whew!! Except for Sadee and Colby, but I think that's because they're younger. We all hung out at the house a lot and got to visit with each other a lot. And there was a puke bucket in almost every room. Believe me, we needed it. So my cousin, her husband and I were joking about writing a 12 Days of Christmas song about it, so we did! I thought I'd post it so you all could laugh, because amidst the puking, we were still laughing. :)

The 12 Days of a Marshall Christmas

On the first day of Christmas, oh what else can it be?
One Pops being rushed to the emergency.

On the second day of Christmas, oh what else can it be?
Two men pushing the stuck Camry.

On the third day of Christmas, oh what else can it be?
Three nights of snowing.

On the fourth day of Christmas, oh what else can it be?
Four Hall’s a skiing.

On the fifth day of Christmas, oh what else can it be?
Five Packham’s puking.

On the sixth day of Christmas, oh what else can it be?
Six hours of sleep each night, not.

On the seventh day of Christmas, oh what else can it be?
Seven crazy nights of family.

On the eighth day of Christmas, oh what else can it be?
Eight dozen eggs.

On the ninth day of Christmas, oh what else can it be?
Nine daily loads of dishes.

On the tenth day of Christmas, oh what else can it be?
Ten plastic puke buckets.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, oh what else can it be?
Eleven nauseous, dizzy, queasy people.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, oh what else can it be?
Twelve missing cups.

(Pictures from Christmas and our trip will follow later this week.)

Time to say the prayer!

One night when we kneeled down to say our family prayer, we noticed Sadee folding her arms. Now she likes us to say prayers a lot. She'll fold her arms (well, it's more of a half-fold) and then look at us. When we ask her if she wants to say a prayer, she smiles. If we don't say one, she fusses and gives us dirty looks. It's pretty funny. In this picture she's wanting me to say a prayer, but she's not too happy with me because instead of saying one, I grabbed my camera!

Christmas dresses

It's so fun having a girl to dress up for Christmas. For years I walked by the cute holiday dresses at the store and thought how fun it would be to have a little girl to dress up. Last year Sadee was so tiny and she had a cute, black, sparkly dress that my friend bought her. But, this year, I got to buy one! Yay! I had so much fun looking around for the "perfect" dress. And then one day I found these adorable silver shoes to go with her dress. Too fun!

(It was hard to get Sadee to hold still for the pictures. She kept wanting to play with the tree.)

Her great-grandma bought her a really sweet Christmas dress too. So she was stylin' this season!

Decorating the tree

We love Christmas at our house. Every year we put the ornaments on the tree together. Even Sadee got to help. We all love it. We have all different kinds of ornaments on our tree that remind us of different events in our life. Every year we let the kids pick out a new one and their grandparents usually give them a new one too. So it's fun talk about "remember when..." as we decorate the tree.