CHRISTMAS
We got to spend Christmas with my family this year. We spent a solid 2 1/2 weeks in Fresno, actually! We stayed at my grandparent's house; my family's house is just a couple minutes away. My sister Carissa came over in the evenings when kids were in bed to watch cheesy Christmas chick flicks on Netflix while eating our traditional snack of stove-popped popcorn with M&M's sprinkled on top.
We were lazy bums for the week leading up to Christmas, I must admit. Lots of lounging, teasing, eating the batches of "failed" fudge my mom made, letting the kids play. Well... letting Nicole play. Austin wanted to be held constantly because he had a cough, was overtired, and was cutting 8 teeth at the same time. I had noticed a couple new teeth coming through at the beginning of December, but I didn't even realize he was cutting that many until a few days before we left to go home. 8 more teeth! He has a total of 16 now! Ridiculous. He was back to his normal, cheerful self towards the end of vacation once he got through the worst of the pain. But anyways... really though, I was such a bum. Not to mention I regress to being an annoying teenager when I'm around my siblings. (I can't be the only one, right?!? Haha!)
My aunt and uncle had a Christmas Eve party at their house, following which we did our traditional walk through the streets of my grandparents' neighborhood to look at the luminaries. After sticking Austin in bed, we did a quick Nativity program with Nicole and let her put out cookies and milk for Santa. Christmas itself was wonderfully relaxed and low-key.
POST-CHRISTMAS
Two days after Christmas, we all headed up with my mom's side of the family (all her siblings and their families, plus my grandparents) to a cabin up in the Shaver Lake area for our annual Coleman Family Cabin Trip. My dad was the only one not there, but other than that we were all accounted for! 14 adults and 16 kids all in one big house from Wednesday afternoon until Saturday morning! (I'm counting anyone over 18 as an adult in that tally.) There were many games played (both indoors and out among the trees behind the house), many movies watched, and lots of tasty food eaten. Nicole claims that her favorite part of the trip was the hikes that she went on, one with her uncle and one with Doug and me. Poor Austin was in the peak of cutting those 8 teeth, so for the second and third nights he would wake up at 9 or 10 PM and not let me put him down for a good 3 hours (although at the time I didn't even think of teething because I thought he was just over-tired, over-stimulated, and uncomfortable from having to sleep in a pack-and-play. He just needed pain management! SO sorry, Austin!)
Aside from the sad baby at night and me getting a little 12-hour sickness that started as we left on Saturday (hello, hurling on the side of the road), it was a good cabin trip. There was no snow this year like there was 2 years ago, sadly, but it worked out because we didn't have to try to fit our snow gear in our packed car for the long drive from Utah to California.
After a couple more days filled with a little New Years Eve party, a zoo trip, and finally seeing Austin act more like his normal, happy, non-teething self, we headed home with 3 of my siblings in tow so they could stay at our house for a day on their way up to BYU-I for the winter semester. And... that was our Christmas vacation, in a nutshell!
A few pictures from my phone:
Nicole's lounge spot for reading books.
Nicole got to be an angel in a little nativity production in nursery at church.
The bubble machine saw a LOT of action while we were in Fresno. The kids loved it!
Exploring the backyard at Gigi and Poppy's house.
Austin with his mandrake (and proper auditory safety gear, of course!)
The whole Coleman Clan! (Minus my dad)
Cousins + instagram filter + being silly
Aaaaaand this cute one I took with my DSLR of my kids with my parents :)
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