Christmas Gifts

A couple days prior to Christmas, I had just finally begun to feel the holiday spirit; thanks to the beautiful center peice and picture of Jesus and a little girl.

Christmas Eve was a struggle for me because, not only was I dealing with the inconviences of the pregnancy, but what felt like contractions. After Roger and I put the kids in bed, I was hurled over the porclin throan. Shortly after, we decided I needed to go into the Emergency room because of the intense cramping I was having. I returned home around 2am with the doctors concluding that the cramping, extreme nausia and other symptoms (aside from the pregnancy) were result of food poisoning.

I was thankful to return home to a beautiful tile I received for Christmas that says, "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...it's learning to dance in the rain." That's exactly what I did, I counted my many blessings and tried to catch as much sleep as I could before the kids woke us up to open presents.

Santa brought Kambrya a kitchen and Nikholi a race track!

Grandma Judi was also able to manage to send some gifts back to the kids. When Nikholi opened his gift he said, "This is what I've always wanted!" We laughed.
BTW: it was one of those bikes that hook up to the tv to play educational games.

Here is a picture of the kids enjoying their time opening present after present.

Kambri received several baby dolls, one from her brother, one from us, and her favorite was from Grandma Marini.

Nikholi also was excited to see that we got him a hot wheels race track to add onto the tracks he already has.

After we opened all the gifts we organized them nicely in the kids' rooms and they still can't get enough of their new toys.

Another one of Nikholi's favorites was his computer, also brought by Santa Claus.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this Christmas a very memorable Christmas, despite our minor setbacks, you've really made a difference in my life and our family.

THANK YOU!

Christmas Photos

After pondering how I was ever going to get some decent Christmas photos of the kids, I attempted what I believe is the impossible! I put the kids in the bath, did their hair, put them in nice Christmas clothes and begged them to stay put. It was an absolute nightmare, especially since I didn't have any help.. but I got a few cute photos out of the lot, check 'em out:

My little princess is getting soo big!!

I had to beg on my knees for Niikholi to simply hold the book. I even asked him to pretend... I'm shocked you can't see his tears in this photo. He was NOT happy with me!

That's when I grew a brain and asked Nikholi what he wanted in his picture. He said, "LEGOS." A time old toy that is universal for boys and girls; which worked perfect for my purpose, to get them together so I could simply take a picture.

Although difficult to get, these priceless photos have made it on to our Christmas card this year and if you're wondering what our Christmas card looks like, scroll to the top and check out the banner. As soon as we purchase some new ink cartridges, I'll be printing them to send them out.

Here are some other photos that didn't quiet make the Christmas card cut, but are fun to look at (most of them were too dark, too bright, or simply not just right):







This last photo is of the kids and Santa Claus from last Saturday when the kids had breakfast at the mall with him:

More Christmas festivities photos to come...tonight is our Ward Christmas party and tomorrow night we are planning to see the Temple Lights. :)

For the Holiday Season

Our family can be so dysfunctional sometimes that it's nearly impossible for me to get any good pictures of the kids together, much less all of us as a family; so these are going to have to do for our holiday photos this year. ;)

Our Little Peanut

Today we had our first sonogram of our little peanut. The technition showed little concerns and shared with us that we have one little one growing inside me with an estimated due date of July 17th, a week behind what we had previously estimated.

I'm having very strong feelings that I'm carrying a little boy. Although, a sonogram won't be able to determine that for another couple months. Every thing appeared to be healthy with a heart rate of 154 beats per minute. We all very excited and ancticipation is a killer.