It's the most busiest (wonderful) time of the year!!! We started off by taking family pictures. I wanted for us to get family pictures with Kyle's jet, cause now that we know that he is getting out of the military in the next year or so that these jet pictures are limited. I was still under the weather a bit recovering from my gallbladder surgery so the kids really stepped up and were awesome during the photo shoot.
We had to go back to the hospital, but this time for Abby. She was in her acro dance class and came out of a back handspring wrong and snapped her bone right around her elbow. Kyle was up in Vegas for training when this happened so I put the Kids all to bed and then snuck out with Abby at night to the Emergency room. We were waiting in the phoenix children's hospital waiting room for hours and hours till they finally called her back for an X-ray and cast. When I say hours, I mean hours! We got there at 10:00pm, I called Kyle and he decided to jump in the car and start driving down from Vegas to help me. 4 hours later when he arrived to the hospital we were STILL waiting in the lobby for them to call Abby back. I felt horrible cause she was in a lot of pain and of course it was during the children's Motrin/pain reliever shortage. So they couldn't give her any pain relieving medication cause they needed to keep that in case any infants came in with life threatening fevers. I was a livid momma bear. We finally were called back in to get her seen and treated at 6:00 in the morning. So all night we waited in the ER. Thankfully she is ok and gets a fun red sparkly cast for Christmas.
We finally decided the kids were old enough to start helping out with cleaning the church building. Up to this point Kyle and I would go separately without them cause it felt like more work with them there, but then we realized they have to learn and they too need to do service. They ended up loving it and it became a learning opportunity for them on many levels.
We went to Kyle's squadron Christmas party. It was held downtown Phoenix, so we just went for the dinner portion. We usually sneak out when everyone has had a few drinks in them and the night turns to become a little more wild... at that point they don't even notice we have left.
We had our Take Five Christmas show. Abby was still able to dance with her broken arm, and it was my first time choreographing the Nutcracker. Well, it was an abbreviated Nutcracker. I did the snow scene through the land of sweets, but I couldn't be more proud of my students. I thought the costumes and dancing was so beautiful and I am grateful for the chance to set this on them.
We are starting up a new tradition with my Cowan cousins, and that's to go see the Mesa temple Christmas lights! Every year the temple does an amazing display of lights and it really focuses on the true meaning of Christmas. We decided we would all meet up and look at the lights together with all our kids. I really love making traditions with my kids, and hope they remember them and carry them out when they too are adults.
I took Abby to see Ballet Arizona's Nutcracker. I really do wish that Abby could be in a production like this cause I have such fond memories of performing in the Nutcracker growing up. Perhaps in the next year or two she will have a similar opportunity.
Kyle almost killed me for booking us tickets to Schnepf's farms which was over an hour away cause he hates driving all the way out to Queen Creek, but the kids loved it! We drank coco, met Santa, saw lights, and decorated cookies. Kyle is a scrooge at times with these things, but I have to remind him that the kids are only young once, and right now all 4 of them still believe in Santa so we need to enjoy the magic of the season with them.
Christmas Eve tradition of pizza and arcades of course! The kids look forward to this every year. We went to Peter Piper's pizza, and they never wanted to leave.
We then had there Simons over to decorate cookies for Santa. I love how well all our kids get along. After they left we put 4 excited kids to bed in hopes that Santa would come... and he did! Christmas this year was magical. They all had a wonderful time and we even invited Luke (Hollywood) our military single guy friend over on Christmas Day to celebrate with us all.
The week after Christmas we went up to St. George and spent some time with family. The kids all had cousins to play with and we even left our kids there for a few days so Kyle and I could get away for a friend's wedding out in Des Moines. They had a New Year's Eve wedding and it was so fun cause we celebrated all night into the new year. Kyle met Dave (the groom) while at weapons school, and they all got super close. We are so happy for him and look forward to his future with his wife Lexi.
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