Merry Christmas!

Even though we're still on our Christmas vacation, I thought I'd do a quick update and say Merry Christmas to everyone and I hope that you all had a fun Christmas day! This year we got to be with our family in Utah for Christmas and then we're going to do visit our California family on New Year's Eve for about a week. We're so lucky that Ryan has so much time off from his residency and that Ella is still free to fly!

Ella, Ryan and Ryan's mom


Ryan's dad has a train under their Christmas tree that Ella is OBSESSED with--she even says goodbye to it when we leave or when she goes to bed at night.


On Christmas Eve, every year all of Ryan's mom's side gets together. It's gotten to be so many people now that we have to use the church that's right next door to Ryan's parent's house. It's really nice to be at the church and have all the room to let the kids run around.


Another tradition on Christmas Eve is playing Christmas music on the chimes. It's really fun and everyone loves it but don't forget to bring the Advil!


We also always play the Candy Bar game on Christmas Eve. Two seperate dice go around the circle and if you roll a 1 or a 6, you get to pick a candy bar from the stash in the middle. Ella had a really hard time choosing her treat.


Christmas morning Ella didn't wake up until 10:00! We were all waiting around for her to get up and open up her presents.

Ella was so funny cuz she LOVED opening up like the first 2 or 3 presents but then she just wanted to play with what she opened. She was kinda bugged that we kept making her open up more presents.

The art of the tantrum

I've never really been one of those moms whose thought their child was advanced in every way but I'm here to say that Ella is quite advanced in one specific way.  She's only 22 months and yet she has practically perfected the art of the tantrum.  I actually don't know if this is  "advanced" or not, but I just figured that these tantrums wouldn't show their ugly face until she was two...thus, the "terrible twos".  Nonetheless the tantrums are here.  It's actually kinda funny to witness (when I'm in the right mood.)  Anything can set it off from putting a lid on her sippy cup to not letting her take her mac 'n cheese in my room.  Before you know it, full blown tantrum. It starts with the most pathetic face she can muster up, sometimes she'll like run into a wall or something to really let me know that she's upset, but then it usually ends up with her face down on the floor with arms and legs all about.  Kinda like this:

I'm really hoping that this is just a stage and that we're not going to have a 16 year old doing the same thing when we have to tell her that she can't take the car out tonight or something just as tragic.  She really is a sweet little thing that I love beyond words could explain, but MAN, sometimes she really knows how to push my buttons. I think she gets that from her dad.

Thanksgiving

Originally our plans for Thanksgiving were to drive (through the night--the only way to drive with a child!) out to Phoenix to be with my sister and her family. Plus my dad and brother and his wife were going to drive out from San Diego so we could all spend the holiday together.  Well, we had a last minute change of plans because my sweet Grandpa Snead passed away the weekend before Thanksgiving. Lindsay and her family were already in San Diego so they just decided they were going to stay there to be able to be at my Grandpa's funeral.  Even though I thought it was a long shot, I got online to check to see how much it would cost to fly out to San Diego.  I was totally expecting to only see tickets available for like $800 but to my surprise we were able to get round trip tickets for a little more than $200! Can you believe it?! I mean, this was Monday night that I was looking for a ticket to fly out Tuesday morning! AND it was Thanksgiving week--the time when plane tickets are usually the most expensive! Anyway, I was so grateful that we were able to be home for Thanksgiving and to be with family. I was especially grateful that we got to attend my grandpa's funeral. It was such a special day to be with family and remember the great man that my grandpa was. All of us felt very blessed to have him at the head of our family.

One of the mornings my sister and I went down to San Diego to spend some time with my mom so Ryan and Mike took the kids to the beach. (BTW you can always tell when Ryan is in charge of Ella--nothing in her hair!)

Ella and Kaitlyn

My Grandpa served in the Navy...

Some of my cousins

Here's what Ella and Carson did during the funeral--ran around the cemetery.

L-train, this one is for you. Let us know if Oakley needs any models...