Keep Moving Forward: Oh The Christmas Season

I am getting really good at this whole posting late thing. The holidays were crazy, I got super sick when I was supposed to write this and even though I was home to write, I just didn't have the energy to think about everything. So I opted to wait another couple days (obviously) until I felt well enough to write and not just drag my feet through my post. Honestly, I usually write these posts in one sitting. I don't edit them, I mean, not really. I will look for spelling errors and fix grammatical errors, but pretty much what comes out the first time around, is how it's posted. So, without further ado:

Week 1:

Ever since I can remember, my family has celebrated St. Nicholas' Day on December 5th. We would place our shoes in the window, go to sleepand when we woke up, St. Nicholas himself had visited and left either a toy and candy in our shoe, or coal. I've been looking forward to starting this tradition with my family since it has always been something I looked forward to during the Christmas holiday.

Melia totally loved it. She was so excited to put her shoe in the window and the first thing she did in the morning was run to our bedroom to check if Santa came. Which of course, he did. She got a little battery operated fan with Dory on it and some little candies. She carries that little fan with her everywhere! She still reminds us who gave it to her, too. I love seeing how excited she gets every time she plays with it. Oh Christmas.

On Tuesday, I had my original post opt followup with my surgeon and, if you refer back to last month's blog, you will read all about that.

Saturday, we had our ward Christmas party in the morning. In all honesty, I was a little hesitant to go, but I am so, so glad that I did. Scott stayed home to do some homework in the peace and quiet while we were all gone. The ward party was a lot of fun; they had a lot of delicious breakfast casseroles, donuts, milks and fruit. They had a "Snowman in a bag" for every table that we got to cut out and build ourselves. The most exciting part of it all was the performances we got from Anna and Olaf! Oh my heavens, I have never seen Melia light up so fast when she realized that Anna from her favorite movie, Frozen, was on stage singing 'Do You Want to Build a Snowman" She turned to me and just kind of looked at me like, "Mom, I HAVE to go watch her." I just chuckled and told her to go watch! After Anna finished her song, Olaf came on stage! If any of you truly know Melia, you know how much she absolutely LOVES Olaf. She was so excited!! He sang his "Summer" song and Melia still talks about how her two favorites from Frozen came to the Christmas party. In fact, she keeps asking me if I can make her another Frozen cake for her birthday. Oh that girl, she is so cute.

Week 2:

All of the previous week, I had been making plans, after plans, after plans to see old friends of mine Catherine and Carol Beck. They were both in town for the holidays and I hadn't seen either of them in years. Catherine and I hadn't seen in each other in, I think we decided five years, and Carol and I hadn't seen each other in four years. Each time I made new plans, something came up that got in the way. I fell down the stairs and really hurt myself again, Melia got sick and had a fever, all sorts of silly little things. So, Catherine decided that she was going to come to me! She, her husband and little boy, and Carol all came over on Monday to hang out. It was a lot of fun, just kind of talking and watching Ellie and Anders play. They hung around for almost three hours; it makes me forget how quickly time can pass when you have company haha. It was good, really good to see my old friends and chat.

Tuesday night was Scott's work party. It was really hard for me to walk in my dress and brace and sunday shoes haha, but it was nice to get out of the house for a couple hours, just Scott and I. The dinner was pretty yummy, there was a game at the end of it all, and we got to chat with some of Scott's coworkers that he doesn't get much of a chance to talk to at work. It was fun. It was shorter than last years party, but way more relaxed.

On Friday, Scott's work had Santa come visit the office. Oh. My. Cuteness. Melia was so excited to meet Santa she could hardly contain herself! She kept telling me, "I'm going to meet Santa today. But I was a little bit nervous last time and cried. But this time, I will be brave, so Ellie can be brave. Then Santa will give me a present!" Haha. She cracks me up. Melia was very brave though, and she even handed Santa the letter she wrote him. She let him pick up her and didn't even cry, and neither did Ellie! It was a miracle! Melia was, and still is, very proud of herself for being so brave when she went to see Santa. I think it helped that she had something to give him, and she was excited about it. We had a lot of fun at the Christmas lunch at Scott's office, and I got a nice break out of my routine which always makes the day go by faster for me.

Week 3:

This week was pretty casual. It didn't really feel like it, but it was. There wasn't a lot planned because it was the week of Christmas so everything kind of focused itself at Christmas. The entire week, we basically just hung out and got ready for Christmas. Every night we wrapped a few more presents, got last minute presents we needed, candy and ingredients for Christmas day lunch, and visited family.

On Sunday, December 18th, Samantha Rainsdon and I planned on visiting Lindsey Swenson's grave after church. Sam wasn't able to come home for the funeral since it in the middle of the semester and she hadn't seen her grave yet. I try and visit once a month so I thought it would be a good thing to go together. Melia likes to come see Lindsey when I go and asked to tag along. When Sam arrived at our house, Melia and I went upstairs to greet her and the first thing Melia said was, "Oh! You're a girl

Sam, not a boy Sam." Hahaha. Oh man. I totally understand where her thought came from because our nephew's name is Samuel and we call him Sam. So her statement made sense, but it still made us all laugh. We packed up in the car and drove over to the cemetery. We let Melia run around while
Sam and I stood by Lindsey and chatted. We talked about memories, experiences, and Sam told me about her last years with Lindsey after she got home from her mission. It was really nice to hear everything she and Lindsey experienced in the last couple years of Lindsey's life. Sam had some really great experiences with her, especially some great spiritual experiences. It was nice to hear more about that side of Lindsey. When we were feeling ready to leave, I let Sam have a few minutes by herself with Lindsey and Melia and I hung out down the hill a little while and built a tiny little snowman. Melia wanted to give it to Lindsey (cue melting heart) so as she looked for sticks for the arms, I carried her snowman up to Lindsey's grave. It was really cute. Melia has a very sweet heart, always thinking of others and how to help them feel happy. It warms my soul to see how tender and caring Melia is towards others. She is very open to emotion and she works hard to see others smile. Melia's caring heart, makes me want to be more open to other's emotions like she is because it truly makes a difference, I can see it.

A tradtion that the Tarbox (my mom's side of the family) side has, it every Christmas Adam (December 23rd. Think about it; Adam came before Eve) we have a family party. We go to Grandma and Grandpa Tarbox's, eat dinner, have a talent show, Grandpa sings O Holy Night, we play a game, then exchange gifts. We've always done this, in the same order, every year ever since I can remember. I love it. We have missed the last couple Christmas parties so I was really excited to go and see everyone and participate in those traditions that I associate with Christmas. All week, I had been preparing Melia with the idea that she would be singing in front of the family. My mom taught her the song "Picture a Stable in Judea" and Melia just sings it over and over again, so I thought it would be a good way for her to practice getting over her stage fright. She was eager to sing for everyone, surprisingly so! I had printed out pictures for her to look at as she sang to help her remember the order, we practiced the song over and over again at home, we had picked out the key that was most comfortable for her to sing and Melia was ready. She wanted to go first in the talent show, too. We stood her up on top of the piano bench, I got down with my pictures for her, I was about to start singing when she just took off with it! Of course it was in the wrong key, that is too high for her, but she did it and she did it boldly! She was proud of herself, she sang all the words, and even though it wasn't quite the right key, she was able to sing all of it and I am proud of her. She was very cute about it. I could have cried, I was so happy for her. Ever since then, she has been finding any excuse to get up on "stage" and sing songs for me and I absolutely love it! My cute Melia girl. Oh I just love her.

Christmas Eve. Oh how much fun Christmas Eve always is. We went to our wards Christmas Eve Program at 3:00pm, immediately after we went to dinner with Oma. Christmas Eve means Chinese buffet for dinner. We went to a new place this year, which I rather enjoyed, and funny enough ran into my friend and her family, Lauren Holtom (now Bassett). As we were sitting down, Brenda, Lauren's mom, took my shoulders and gave me a hug! They were being seated right next to us haha. That was a lot of fun. She and I chatted for a minute and then we went our ways to get our dinner. Lauren and Parker came a few minutes later and I talked to Lauren for a minute when she got there, and right before we left. Scott and I kind of left in a hurry because we realized that we didn't have everything we needed to make our food for the next morning and stores were closing for the holiday hours. We packed up really fast, loaded our girls and got off to the store as quickly as we could. We were in and out of the store in 10 minutes. It was insane!! We got everything we needed, all with time to spare (like 7 minutes) before they closed. I felt so bad going in so last minute. We had planned to go in the morning, but obviously it didn't work out and then the afternoon very quickly got away from us and then there we were, standing in checkout minutes before closing getting our items. But it worked out well enough. When we got home, my mom helped me wrap two quick presents for the girls. Matching PJ's! OH MY GOSH I LOVE MY KIDS! They are so stinking cute. Melia was very excited to get new PJ's and very excited to see that Ellie got the exact same ones. BAH! I love them! We got the girls ready for bed, did our hugs and kisses upstairs, and got them in bed. I should say ALMOST got them in bed. Melia remembered that she needed to make Santa some cookies. So I pulled out a sugar cookie mix, made the dough, we cut the cookies, cooked them and iced and decorated them. That took an extra 45 minutes out of our night. But it was really good, I could have

been a little less stressed (and grumpy) about it, but Melia had fun. Now I know, next year, start everything sooner. After our cookies for Santa were done and waiting for Santa on the kitchen table, we wished Melia goodnight, happy dreams, and a Merry Christmas. Once Melia was asleep, we got going on what I knew was going to be a long night. We had a lot that still needed to be done. In the following order, we need to make our food (my casserole needed to sit overnight 98% assembled and Scott needed to make his OBCC, starting with the dough), we had to finish cleaning up the rest of the house, wrap the remaining presents, assemble Melia's big car from Donna and Ted, and then, finally, we could go to bed. Unfortunately, Melia didn't go to bed until sometime close to, or just after 9:00pm. That is an hour and a half later than her usual bedtime at 7:30. So the minute she was in her bed, we started the food and got that done as quickly as we could, then wrapped the presents while watching Secondhand Lions, put our laundry away that was folded all over our front room, cleaned the kitchen from our cooking messes, then went upstairs to assemble Melia's car. Ellie, of course, woke up somewhere around 1:40 in the morning and so even though we were (basically) done with Melia's car, we didn't get to bed until 2:45 because I had to feed Ellie, we changed her diaper and got her back to sleep. To top it all off, we had 9:00 am church. Hoo-rah! We knew we wanted to do stockings first AND before church, so we were up and moving a little after 7:00 am. It was a long, long night. But we got it all done and the girls loved it the next morning!

Week 4:

Oooooooooh Christmas morning. Scott and I were exhausted. Scott was on duty for organ at church so we got the girls up and did our Christmas Stockings. Melia was so excited about everything she got, and equally excited for Ellie and all that she got haha. We played with our new toys from the stockings for a few minutes and then hustled to get everyone ready for church. The girls wore their super cute Christmas outfits, Melia's included new knee high boots (which I am in love with) and a beautiful coat from Donna that makes her look like a sweet little British lady (the fact that she chose to bring her stuffed kitty to church helped with that).

After our Sacrament meeting, we went home and got ready for Christmas. We changed out of our Sunday clothes, my parents came downstairs and we all had breakfast together. When we had finished eating, we let the girls open their presents. Surprisingly, Melia was very adament about giving Ellie her turn to open a present after each present Melia unwrapped, herself. It was very cute. Christmas was fun, the girls mostly got clothing and books, but there were some more things in there that made it really exciting. Melia has recently taken a liking to superheros and I found a set of four super hero capes AND masks AND stickers online for like $20. Obviously bought it. It has a Wonder Woman set, Batman set, Spiderman set and Superman set. Since I bought the set that had Wonder Woman in it, the rest of the capes and masks are modified into pinks and purples to be more feminine, but honestly, Melia would have totally loved the originals, too. She is currently obsessed with "Spidey" and loves whenever she see's anything related to Spiderman so when she chose to wear that cape and mask first, I wasn't surprised. I had asked her, "Melia, are you Spider Girl?" Her reply, "No Mom. I am Spideyman!" She knows what's up, the superhero isn't Spider Girl, it's Spiderman. She cracks me up. Melia's other fun gifts were the big playdough set that my parents got her, the big car that Donna and Ted got her, and her new books from Usbourne which she has really started to enjoy. Ellie received mostly clothing, a sleepsack (to replace a loose blanket at night) and some new toys which include a couple teethers, stress balls for her to also chew on, and a "sit and walk" bug toy from my parents.

The rest of the afternoon was filled with more presents and cleaning up the mess. I surprised Scott with one of my gifts, which is a watch repair kit. He has the beginning of a watch collection with, I think, 7 watches. Well, watches have batteries and batteries die. I thought the repair kit would be something that he would enjoy because he likes to be able to fix things himself and he loves his watches. Doesn't go a day without wearing one. He was surprised about that gift and, as I suspected,

pulled it out at his first chance to see what he could do with it. I also got Scott some new dress shoes, a sweater (he picked for himself), I got him a new BYU royal blue sweater and socks to match, some more dress socks, and a pilot fountain pen. I was spoiled enough to get a baby food making kit I had asked my mom for and my parents got Scott and I all sorts of really nice emergency prepardness gear. Scott got me a sweater, a watch set and some sunglasses, two new pair of shoes, a new kitchen strainer that attaches to the pot directly and a new measuring cup set. Donna and Ted sent me a Garmin Swim watch, some donut pans, pizza stone and cutter and a BYU rugby shirt (that was an entire family gift since Matt is on the team). It was a good Christmas.

Not long after we had finished our presents upstairs with my parents and Grandma and Grandpa Tarbox, we ate our lunch and then hurried downstairs to do some more damage control of the Christmas Mess and get everything set up to have our video chat with Josh!! Oh Josh. We sure miss that boy, but he is just striving out on the mission. His letters each week are always so wonderful and he is so full of the spirit. Melia was so, so excited to be able to see Uncle Josh! Scott and I were too. TC and Hannah came over for the call with Josh as well and we all just had a ton of fun. With the time we had with Josh, we were really able to talk about everyone and we all had a turn to pitch in. Melia could have talked everyone's ears off had she not been so excited about Uncle Tyler coming over and showing him all of her new legos haha. Josh is a really great kid. He is always so mindful of everyone around him and he is so excited to be serving a mission, even more than a year into his mission, he still has that same fire and excitement to be teaching. Missionaries are just fun. Melia is always so concerned if we don't pray for Uncle Josh on his mission and it always makes us smile. She has to be sure that he is included in every prayer she says, or we say, and we love it. So Josh, you are always, always prayed for in our home!

The rest of this week was really pretty empty. We didn't plan a whole lot, which ended up being nice because Melia got sick. She had some 24 hour stomach bug, but it was pretty intense. The night that Melia threw up, Scott decided he would stay home later the next morning to help with the sick girly and give me a little break from both girls while Melia was sick. Luckily, it seemed to pass over the rest of us in the house, but poor Melia is always the one that gets sick. She's a trooper though and she does her best to be happy.

Melia's Sick Day

On Tuesday of this week, I had my followup appointment with my knee surgeon. I went in feeling ok, but was prepared to hear that I still needed three more weeks before I could exercise. My doctor did some tests on my knee and told me I was clear to exercise! The only thing I am not allowed to do for another several weeks is run, and let's be honest, I wouldn't be doing any running anytime soon anyway haha. I am really excited that I am able to get back into some sort of exercise routine again because exercising helps me relax. Naturally, I went swimming as soon as I was able to. I was a little nervous about how my knee would feel, especially when I pushed off the walls, but everything really felt ok. I wasn't as out of shape as I thought I would be either which is a nice realization. I was advised to not swim breaststroke for a few more weeks, but I wasn't planning to do that anyway because I don't want to give my knee any excuse to injure itself again.

When New Year's Eve rolled around, there really wasn't much planned. We planned to stay in with the girls and honestly, after the girls went to bed, Scott and I just played some video games until midnight, had a New Year Kiss and then went to bed. Because we're awesome. With New Year Day being Sunday, we didn't do anything really then either, but because the holiday fell on a weekend, Scott was home on Monday again. Monday also happened to be Ellie's 8 month birthday. Ellie grows at a rate that I don't know how to keep up with. She cruises around in her walker like an expert and she couch cruises like she doesn't even need the support. She babbles constantly and eats like a linebacker. She has learned how to wave and clap and does both all the time. Ellie still follows Melia around everywhere and laughs at all the things Melia does to make Ellie laugh. Ellie loves to take bathes, she loves to explore and puts absolutely everything in her mouth. She still has no teeth and as far as we can tell, won't have any for awhile longer. She loves to snuggle and loves her fuzzy blanket. She has regressed on her sleeping and we are all a little tired from that. But regardless of how much sleep we get, we love our little family and we Keep Moving Forward