This is what it looked like the day before we headed out to Canada. I was super nervous about how Graham would do on a 12 hour drive. I was also nervous for the roads, and our safety kinda. I've never been nervous about traveling before, and I'm 100% sure it was because of the fact that we have a kid now. We knew it was going to take longer to get there and we had to make the border by 11:00 that night, so we planned on leaving super duper early to give us time to spare on the trip. To our frustration, that morning we packed our passports and could not find Steve's anywhere. Our semi clean house was torn apart looking for it, and for a moment we thought that we wouldn't be able even go to Christmas with Steve's family :(
But! After a couple hours and a lot of phone calls, we found a loop hole. It was super complicated and we triple-checked to make sure we could get Steve in and out of Canada legally haha. Blessing! We had a prayer in our hearts and our prayers were answered.
Passenger seat down and voila! The ele-bed. Our Element is so awesome. Not to mention that boppy makes a good traveling pillow.
Graham all ready for his first road trip with his "of to grandma's" onsie. Perf. He actually did so good! He slept almost the entire way. We did stop like 800 times to nurse him and change his diapers, but we made it to Canada! Because of our late start it was almost 11:00 by the time we arrived! I feel like we are always pushing the clock on our trips there.
So, I have to add that Graham had a serious meltdown when we were ready for bed that night. I have never seen him that angry before! We knew it was because of the long trip and the fact that he slept in his car seat all day. He was so mad, we stayed up for a couple hours trying to make him happy but nothing was helping. It was pretty heart wrenching for us. Maybe he cried himself to exhaustion or maybe he was just tired in the first place, but once he fell asleep we knew that was what he needed. Weird, because he basically slept the whole day?! It's just, the feeling of not being any help, when you so desperately want to help is what's killer. Next morning he was our happy boy again. And that was a relief!
Oh gosh, those two are my favorite.
These two share very similar expressions! One of my favorite things about Steve is how animated he can get.
The next morning we woke up to a house full of kiddos and most of our siblings! We got to work on what's becoming a Christmas tradition for us. Mega graham cracker-ginger bread cities! Kami laid out basically everything in her pantry, and this year we didn't spare anything. It turned out so cool!
This was where those two cousins spent a lot of their vacation! On the floor next to the party. Haha so cute!
Those kids loved the final result! Look at that resistance.....well it only lasted for a couple pictures.
That same day we had an extended Smith family get-together/dinner at the Mountain View elementary gym, with all the gym toys. Small towns are so cute. You can just rent out the elementary school gym! All the adults talked while the kids played with the balls and mats. Later we had dinner and some of us adults ended up playing a fun game of "bump"! It was so fun! I crave physical activity, and since having a baby (and 3 months before Graham was born) I haven't done any kind of exercise! I was so winded it wasn't even funny, but that feeling of being energized by exercise is what I love about it. I probably shouldn't have done as much running as I did, but it made me happy to be active again.
We also got to introduce Graham to Steve's extended family and Grandparents! They all loved him!
Christmas day, we blasted Christmas music and played dominos (yay!) while we got dinner prepared for that night. Grandma and Grandpa Smith were coming over to come celebrate with us too! As always the food was delicious, but we had a little potato mis-hap! I can't recall what exactly went wrong, but the consistency was literally like glue! We all had a big laugh about that one, although it wasn't that bad tasting! But Wyatt did come up to dinner and asked everyone what was wrong with the potatoes haha! You can always count on little kids to be brutally honest.
Just hanging out with the Grandparents :)
After dinner, we had our first ever Smith Nativity Pageant! This is one of my favorite parts about Christmas, and we had enough children to make it a fun deal. Joel read the story out of the Bible, and Steve played some soft Christmas music on the piano. It really was beautiful! Poor Lanae had a sad little meltdown, but we made her happy enough to play with baby Jesus a little bit. That video will be one worth watching years down the road! Look at those cute kids!! Oh, and on an added note, Lanae has been saying Graham's name and it sounds more like "gum"! It's sweet and cute! And he did a great job at being the baby Jesus! He just sat there, not too difficult haha. All the kids were just happy to get a reward for their work in the pageant. Kami made them all pillow cases! Even some miniature pillows and pillow cases for the two babies!
We got this Santa sleeper, and thought it was hilarious!! Merry Christmas time! That night we had a super fun gift guessing game, that Kami had planned for the adults after the kids went to bed. We had a lot of fun laughing with everyone!
CHRISTMAS MORNING!!
This picture just kills me! Lanae, you got that nose picking thing down girl!
Weston thanking Wyatt for his gift! Another killer picture!
Sweet Lola! She's such a doll (with a doll).
Now it's the Adults turn. Looking for our gifts hidden in the tree!
Okay, seriously how does she look so good in the morning. Not fair! Not to mention she is 6 months preggo!
Picking gifts for Steve this year was hard. Because he gave me nothing for ideas! I usually either go out on a limb and get something random, in hopes that it would be something cool. Or I just go with stuff that he really needs. But this year I wanted to think outside the box if I could. He did say that he wanted his gift to have thought put in it. That still gave me a lot of room in my head for ideas though!
I know Steve. He loves fidgeting, creating, and designing. It is his outlet! The guy will find creativity in anything! Take my hair for example. If my head is in his lap, he wont hesitate to put my hair into Medusa-looking braids. That among many other things have proven to me that he has a natural artistic ability! And that is part of the reason why we enjoy doing DIY projects together. We both like it. We talk, get to be creative together, and have fun!
My idea was to play with his artistry and put together a DIY package together for him. It included several of the projects we have wanted to do. So I went out and bought all of the materials needed, so that he could just work on it when he wants to. One of the projects was a big canvas that we have wanted to paint and hang on our wall. I got a smokin' deal on the canvas and chose a color pallet of paint that I thought would go with our home decor! I was really excited about this gift! I thought it was genius! But after a while I was really nervous that he would be disappointed in getting "projects" for Christmas....that isn't normally a type of gift people want haha! Of course I got him other presents that aren't project related, and I knew those would be winners! So if I flubbed up on the big present, then maybe my smaller gifts would make it better. But I trusted my gut, and 3 years of marriage to this guy, and went through with it!
And guess what...he loved it!! I asked over and over again just to be sure that he wasn't disappointed, and he wasn't. He reassured me by saying, "Lexi. If it's something that plays with my creativity, or if it's from Apple, it's a really good present." Haha!! Oh that guy, he makes me laugh so much.
Oh this was pretty special. So Brad is a descendant of Wilford Woodruff. When he and Kami visited Nauvoo they went to his house, and Kami told me that it was a really neat and spiritual experience. To stand in his Grandfathers house, who was the one to pioneer his children and future grandchildren into the Gospel. So she got an oil painting of the house and framed it beautifully to sit in their living room! I think everyone in the room felt the love that Brad has for his Grandfather, when he opened the gift.
There is sits! It's such a great painting, isn't it!
Three generations of grandsons. So special!
Oh, and this was just so hilarious. This is a true reaction from Kami coming upstairs to find a gift from Brad. A giant dehydrator oven! Her first thought was where are we going to put it!!!! Hahaha! Such a cool gift! And Brad makes me laugh seriously all the time.
Christmas morning breakfast casserole!
Grandma and Grandpa Great with their great grandson Graham (try saying that five times fast). They invited all of us to have dinner with them a couple days after Christmas and it was so nice to spend time with them! Especially Grandma. She just loved that little boy and was happy to cuddle him. And he just fell right asleep :) Grandpa Smith has a sweet place with me, because both of my own Grandpa's have passed a long time ago. I miss them very much, and wish that I could have gotten to know them as an adult. Although I have very, very fond memories as a little girl. When I got married, Grandpa Smith asked me to dance and I just felt both of my own Grandfathers with me at that moment. He probably didn't know it, but it was almost like he was doing a favor for them. I know that they both were there on my happy day, and they would have wanted to dance with me. I have always felt that Grandpa Smith has adopted me as a granddaughter and it is very comforting! Not to mention, Steve looks up to him very much. He has learned a lot from both his Father and Grandfather!
That face is so funny Graham!!! Such a fun idea to go swimming. The family rented out the pool for an hour and we just played played played! I love playing in the water and it was fun to have a change in activity too! This was probably one of my favorite things we did this Christmas! We took Graham in the water for the first time...so funny! The water wasn't that warm, and we only had him in for a dip. He usually loves the water when he takes showers and baths, but I don't think he looked too thrilled about this particular water experience. After we sat by the hot tub he just dozed right off! Sleepy boy!
 |
AHHHH! This picture is so sweet! This was a long awaited reunion with Amber, and the first time Graham met my one of my best and longest friends!! The first thing we did when we met up was grab each other's babies and dote on them! Those boys had no idea how lucky they were! They look a little unsure of the situation here :)
I had met Amber's cute baby, Crew, back while I was pregnant. He was just a little guy then, and now here he is playing with toys and cheerfully screaming! Haha! We get to see Amber and Colby every other year for Christmas, and I was so happy that she got to see my baby!! I love showing people my sweet little boy. Especially people closest to me!! So of course I was anxious to see her, and when we did it was total bliss!
Okay, those boys were so curious with eachother! Since Crew is a little older he was more aware of Graham, than Graham was aware of Crew. But he did stare at him a lot! Crew on the other hand got really curious with this new little guy. Eventually Crew grabbed a hold of Graham's shirt and just held onto it haha! Towards the end, Crew even grabbed his hand!!
All of us together! With our babies?! Seriously it's so crazy! But so fun!
We continued the rest of our Christmas week doing more fun family activities! One evening we went to Lethbridge and had pizza and then went bowling!
Well Canada you finally made it happen! We wanted snow this trip so that we could go sledding. And build a snowman! A really big snowman. That's all I wanted. But the day before Scott and Carisa left, it snowed!! We did not wait to get our snowboots on :)
Guess what! We didn't wipe out!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
No comments:
Post a Comment