More Christmas

My mom just posted some more Christmas pictures so I thought I'd relieve the season for just a little longer.
Sledding:


Mom and I headed up the hill.



Do you see my mom? She biffed it.





Mom and I at the bottom





Ready to race.




Mom thinks I'm a pretty fun sled driver.



Waiting for Dad to get home so we can open presents:

Sister Ashley

Brother in law Mike

Thomas and I passing the time with electronics.



Sister Bea imagining what Santa brought her.

Family:

Grandma and Grandpa Clement



My pretty sisters

My lover and I

The Cutest Little Boy in the World:

Randomness:

My bro-in-law's sister Eunice came from Mexico for Christmas.  She just graduated high school and will be attending college here in the states.

 My mom had a little present wrapped up in a check book box for Thomas and I.  On it was written "Remember the plan."  Apparently I told her that I wanted kids when I was 24 and since I'm 24 now she is reminding me about that.

 It's a little Seattle Sounders onsie :) They are a soccer team that Thomas and I like.  My sister Ashley was like "Is this an announcement!?"  I assured her that it wasn't.

 This big blow up thing my mom got on clearance and we had many a debate about whether it is a bear/reindeer/ or dog. 

Dad, Alex, and dog Abby in front of the reindeer/dog/bear.

Christmas Extravaganza

My family celebrated Christmas on the 23rd because of all of us kids' differing work schedules.  Thomas, unfortunately, had to work Christmas day so that meant we had to leave Christmas eve morning to head back to Idaho.
Since my dad didn't get off work till 5:30pm on Wednesday, we were all eagerly anticipating his arrival with my grandparents so that we could start opening presents.  It was pretty funny watching all of us sitting around in the dining room listening for the car to pull up.  Around 6pm we started opening presents.

My sister Ashley was sad I didn't have christmas jammies so right before we opened presents we ran to walmart and got some for me.

Usually somebody is designated as "santa" and hands out presents to everybody.  This year we all just kind of passed the presents to whoever they belonged to.  It was so fun watching my nephew Alex with his new toys.  He got a music set with drums and tambourines and bells and was just enthralled with it.  For about 15 minutes he sat banging on the drum with a look of deep concentration on his face.  He was hitting it so hard that it ended up breaking on one side.  He's a strong little guy. 

My big gift from Thomas was a Kindle.  I love it so far! It's awesome not having to lug around a bunch of books while on vacation.  I also like that you can put games on it too.  So far I have read Self magazine on it and started reading a book called "Run like a Mother"  which I like a lot.  We exchange names within our immediate families and have a $100 limit on that gift.  My sister had me and got me the suede couch covers that I had been wanting.  Thomas got some new snowboarding pants that he had been wanting from our brother-in-law.
Thomas' big gift was Guitar Hero World Tour with the whole band set up for his PS2.  We've had some problems setting it up so haven't played it yet but we are hoping to do so tonight. 
After everybody had opened their presents we played the $10 gift exchange game, which is a tradition we started a few years ago.  Everybody buys a $10 gift and then you pick numbers and starting with number one you choose a gift or steal one.  A gift can only be stolen two times and then it's safe.  I was the last one and so had my choice of gifts.  I went for the Yahtzee game (which I had bought) and Thomas got the belgium waffle maker (another one I had bought).  We were very happy with our choices :) Today I made pumpkin waffles on the waffle maker and the tasted wonderful. 
After all the gifts we sat down for Christmas dinner.  My dad recently learned how to smoke turkey so we had smoked turkey and ham.  I love the dark turkey meat.
I think we ended up playing Yahtzee that night.  Yahtzee has become our families go-to game lately.  I like it cause it's quick, fun, and exciting.
While home in Washington I think I went to bed at 10pm every night.  I'm such an old lady.  But I like going to bed at a decent hour because then I can get up before everybody else does to workout and not feel like I'm missing out on anything.  This trip I brought my Jillian Michael's DVD's and worked out to them every morning.  (I also got some new 3lb weights for Christmas)
Thomas and I both agreed that one of our top three favorite things we did on our Christmas trip was going sledding. Wednesday, before all of the present opening we went with my Mom to the nearby Junior High that has a great sledding hill.  We started off on a smaller little hill that was in between two of the buildings and then decided to move to the bigger hill.  It's a little worrisome because you end up right next to the building and if you go fast enough you could definetly crash into it.  I was a wimp and scared of the little jumps people made and would avoid them at all costs by bailing out of the sled.  I don't remember the last time I went sledding and had forgotten how fun it can be.



I love that my mom is up for any adventure and that she went sledding with us.

 Thursday we went over to Thomas' parents house for most of the day.  I loved walking into the house and Kayden, Lexi, Savannah, and Katie all shouted "LINDSEY'S HERE!!!" and ran to hug me.  That is exactly why I want to be a teacher.  Kids are just so fun and make life so happy.  The nieces and nephews were very entertaining.  We told knock knock jokes, I braided the girls hair, painted fingernails (even Kayden wanted his done), read christmas books, sang christmas songs, and danced.  Very fun.

Lexi and Katie Bug showing off their painted nails.

 The nieces and nephews even wanted to put on a little performance for Thomas and I so they sang Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  Adorable. 
We opened more presents there and ate lots of yummy food. 
Christmas eve was spent traveling home and we lucked out with clear roads all the way home. 

In front of the in-laws tree

Sleigh Bells Ring

We left for christmas break on Sunday night.  Thomas worked from 7am-7pm so I spent the day with my MTC mission companion.  We went to church together and then hung out the whole day.  I picked Thomas up around 7pm and we were off, headed to Boise for the night.  We spent the night at my friend and old roommate Tess's house.  I love being able to see them pretty frequently when we stop over on our trips home.  Monday morning we were off again.  I had borrowed some books on CD from the library to try out for the trip.  The only problem is, whenever I put the CD on I ended up falling asleep and missing part of the story.  This was a bonus too though because the 6 hour trip home, I slept most of the way so it went by super fast.  The CD was actually a huge failure, it took forever to get to the plot of the story and then had a sick twist where the mentally disabled sister runs off to be a lesbian.  Very weird.
Monday night we spent with my parents and played Yahtzee with them and my younger sister and her hubby. 
Tuesday was Thomas' parents day. We had six neices and nephews over there so we were very entertained.  We went sledding and played a million games of Go Fish. Instead of sleds the kids used sheets of plastic to slide down the little hill next to Thomas' parents house.  They worked very well, I was impressed.

Miss Lexie

Miss Katie

Lil' daredevil Savannah

Kayden giving his cousin Katie some hugs.

My lover.  His job was to stop the kids from running into the little pump/rock at the end of the hill.

Mr. Kayden

The little girls and I going down the hill.

Lovers for life

Thomas and the little ones.

We could fit a lot of kids on that little piece of plastic.

Mr. Dillan

At the end of the night we were all in the living room chatting.  Thomas was laying on the couch next to me and got up to go check on the jerky he was making.  Savannah (7) and Katie (4) asked if they could snuggle with me.  They found out a spoke spanish and spent the next half hour asking "How do you make _____ spanish?" I was very surprised how well they could pronounce the words. Especially Savannah.  Another half hour was spend playing name that tune christmas version by humming.  Then another half hour they told Thomas and I there favorite parts of Home Alone.  It was so entertaining and I loved it.

The Holiday Season

Here are the highlights of our Thanksgiving Break:
-Driving 15 hours to get back to Idaho when it normally only takes 11.
-Playing Wii biking, table tennis, and bowling.
-Black Friday shopping for the first time with my mom- I was very proud of my purchases.  Our first stop was Michaels at 8:30pm Thanksgiving night.  I got beautiful, bright christmas tree ornaments and ribbons for the tree for a grand total of $25! Next stop around 11:30pm was Wal-mart. We were ready in line with our purchases by 12pm when they opened up the registers.  After Wal-mart we went home till 3:30am and I did a little online shopping.  After that we stood in line for a half hour in the freezing cold outside of Target.  At Target I got a pre-lit 6-foot Christmas tree for $25 and a microwave for $33.  After Target we went to Big 5 and then finally arrived home at 6am.  And I slept until 2pm:)
-We celebrated Thanksgiving on Wednesday since my Dad had to work Thanksgiving day and Thomas had to head back to Idaho.  Our family has the tradition of going to a movie on Thanksgiving day.  This year we saw the Harry Potter movie.  I haven't read any of the books or seen all of the movies so I'm sure a lot was lost on me, but still a good movie. 
- Thanksgiving day we went to the hospital where my Dad works and had dinner with him in the cafeteria.  I was a little nervous to eat in a hospital cafeteria but it was actually pretty good. 
- My best friend from high school and her hubby Rob and their 2 month old baby Collin came to chat and have a little game night at my parents house.  Collin is such a cutie and I'm so glad that I got to see their little family. 
- I worked out 4 out of 6 days in Washington.  Very happy about that. 
- On the way to Washington we spent the night with my friend/old roomie Tess in Boise.  Love her and I love that we live closer and are able to see her family more often.  They are so generous to let us come at all ours of the night and crash at their place.
- It was soooooo nice not worrying about school and not having anything that I HAD to do for a whole week!
It is always nice to get back into routine once vacation is over.  Here is what has happened since being back:
- Lots of projects and tests in my classes.
-Put up the Christmas tree!

I learned how to fold the bow topper from an online video.

-Thomas and I went on a date to Idaho Falls to see The Forgotten Carols play.  So nice.  I had been before but I feel like this year the singers/actors were exceptional and I swear they changed the play up a bit. 
- We have half of our Christmas cards sent out and are almost done addressing the second half. 
- Thomas and mine schedule's have been pretty much opposite this whole week so the day that he had off he came with me to a forum about classroom motivation and management for two hours.  He's such a trooper :)