Just like everyone else's December ours is totally full.
Full of fun, craziness, laughter, lots to do, and more.
Here's just a few:
Temple Square lights with the youth, High Fitness with Red, Ty's Christmas Blitz at work, Moana, sleepover with the Thomas girls, Brynlee's show and teach about Abraham Lincoln, Fat Cats bowling with the Lawrence crew (I wanted to steal the bowling shoes I got - they were cute!), wrapping oddly shaped gifts, taking two hours to get to work up Big Cottonwood Canyon because everyone and their dog wanted to go skiing and a Terrific Trio lunch and nails date at our house.
That's just what I got pictures of. There's always much more going on than what we can get on camera.
*~* Christmas Eve *~*
Spent at Grandma Browns this year.
The look on their faces when Santa and Mrs. Claus came in was so priceless.
Santa told us his own version of the Night Before Christmas. He needed reindeer to help him.
Our presents under the tree. Brynlee wrapped things she didn't want and gave them to me and Ty. She came up with her own cute little names for us too.
Christmas cookies, eggnog and the traditional letter to Santa.
*~* Christmas Day *~*
It was a Sunday this year and with 9 am church we didn't have much time in the morning. We did let her open a couple gifts though and then, like the terrible Mother I am, I made Brynlee eat a cinnamon roll for breakfast and get ready for church. Our meeting was only going to be 45 minutes so that helped I guess but we were late. It snowed a ton the day before and Ty shoveled pretty much all morning. We also drove to church which doesn't happen often at all.
Christmas outfit. Gold and pink this year. The second picture was what she did when I told her she could pose any way she wanted.
My sweet little family.
I love them so much. From the bottom of my heart to the moon and back.
P.S. My dress was a bit over the top. However, I felt beautiful and don't regret it at all.
At church I had been asked to bear my testimony of Christ. I felt very inadequate but as I was standing up there it all came together. Wanting to be real, my testimony was simple, short and deep. I shared a touch of my struggles lately and how it made me question everything I knew. However, I shared that I couldn't deny that I had a Heavenly Father & Mother who loved me and were deeply aware of my grief. I also could not deny my Savior and his Atonement on my behalf. The ending of our Surrogacy journey shook my testimony to its bare bones and I was honest about that. Honest that I didn't want to read scriptures or pray or come to church anymore. That life isn't fair sometimes. On the flip side, going to the dark place I was in made me realize that I don't want to be there. I don't want to go that direction. I mentioned obedience and how it helped me recover from this hard experience I had just gone through. I cried but it went well. It was from my heart and I hoped that it didn't sound like 'Poor me.' To end it all I almost tripped on my way down from the pulpit. Yep, in my heels and pretty flowing dress I almost fell down but in the nick of time I caught myself. No big deal, right! Several of my sweet friends came up to me after the meeting was over and hugged me. I love the people in our ward.
Once we got home, she couldn't be happier to play with her toys and open presents.... finally!
Brynlee made me a calendar from school. She was so excited to give it to me. I got choked up. How cute is this? That Christmas tree is darling! And that penguin, oh melt my heart. I couldn't be a more proud Mama.
Finally we were off to make some rounds. Maga and Papa Thomas's house was first!
They gave us an Amazon Echo and it is super cool!
We ate, played games and opened presents.
Speak out was hilarious and so fun!
Then it was off to Mimi and Papa Lawrence's house.
We ate some more, acted out a story as animals on a sled, opened gifts, searched for the pickle (Tisha got it this year), did our white elephant exchange and just hung out. I got a predator ornament and Ty got a safe disguised as a can of cleaner. The gift I gave was 10 pairs of sunglasses and an ugly wind up vampire toy and Ty gave weird socks like Superman tall socks with capes on them, meat socks and another pair that I can't remember what they were. Mark got my glasses and TyTy got Ty's socks which couldn't be more appropriate since he's a sock nazi!
Mom gave us all hats since she's taking us up to Soldier Hollow for sledding again this year.
Ty got sick Christmas Night (we were up a lot that night) and stayed sick for about three days. Yick!
Monday we were supposed to go to Grandma Browns for breakfast and Grandma Thomas' for tying blankets and dinner. Well I got all ready, took Brynlee to Grandma Browns, ate breakfast and then really felt like I needed to be with Ty so I left Brynlee with Maga and went back home to dawn my new Star Wars shirt Ty bought me and sweat pants. They brought her home after all the festivities were over and Justin, Victor and James gave Ty a blessing.
The following days consisted of my front room being turned into a hot mess with all our gifts and Brynlee's legos strung about everywhere! Brynlee slept over at Maga's with all the rest of the Brown/Thomas/Lautogia girls! Matching PJ's, a movie and the works I'm sure. Mc came and slept over one night too and the girls had a blast just playing and playing and playing. It was so fun to listen to them giggle all night. We went to Zupa's and saw Sing with Ty's family on Friday night too. Cute movie and good company. Party all week for Miss Brynlee Jade.
Ty's awesome Christmas light skills and our new ornaments. We had a couple this year. A sand dollar with a butterfly on it to remember Ashlee and our cruise to Key West, there's also a mini conch shell that I'll tie on it. The other one is BB8 from Disneyland. Brynlee has decided that she really loves Star Wars and watched it several times over the Christmas break. I would've never guessed my girl would love Star Wars and I am entirely ok with it.
Our Gingerbread village. It wasn't super great this year to be honest. There are three houses here but Ty's is not one of them. It's in the trash. He got too frustrated and didn't want to finish his. Brynlee whined that hers wasn't good enough and I did two houses because it's one of my favorite things to do. So we are going to pretend that Ty did one and that it's in the picture, Brynlee loved hers and the night was a success.
Our Christmas card. I used Etsy for the first time and I'm pretty sure I'll never go back to using any other way to do my cards.
New Year's at Grandma Brown's. Small drawing this year but we played tons of games and it was a blast. Scategories, Speak Out, a couple others and just hanging out. Can't believe I made it to midnight. I went and kicked butt at High Fitness that morning with Crystal so I was super tired. Brynlee and Aspen just played their hearts out and watched fireworks outside. I got my New Year's kiss from Ty and got a little choked up thinking about this New Year for my family and our new journey ahead of us.
Good bye 2016. You've changed us forever.
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