Christmas & New Years

I can't believe Christmas (and New Year's) has come and gone! This was our first Christmas as a family of 4 and while we were all sleep deprived, it was still sweet and full of so much excitement! My parents and younger brother came down to Arizona to help us celebrate and we loved it! Eric had Christmas and the day after off... his first in 32 days (when I say I've been in survival mode lately, I'm not kidding!) and that was definitely the best gift of all- spending time together as a family! Of course I was horrible about taking pictures, oops! But I wanted to share a few highlights from our Christmas that I don't want to forget:

• the glitter that will never fully be cleaned out of our home. Mia got dress ups for her birthday (plus her sparkly Sunday dresses and old dress ups!) and she loved showing them off to family. She basically lived in them and there is glitter everywhere... it drives Eric crazy but I admit that I don't hate it, ha ha!
• I was trying to delay Mia from going out to look at her gifts by doing her hair and talked her told her that pig tail messy buns is actually reindeer hair (to match her jammies) and she requests "reindeer hair" almost every day since :)
• Mia thought Santa was actually in our house with her gifts because when she ran out to look at them, she ran straight for me and hid behind my legs. It took a few moments to get her to quit searching the room and actually look at her gifts. It took her a minute to believe us when we said Santa wasn't there :)
• Mia playing endlessly with her toys... and James! She has taken over all of his gifts as well ;) ha ha!
• We had originally planned a full day of fun the day after Christmas, but I had the beginning signs of a nursing infection (boo!) and Eric had to work on our cars before he went back to working his crazy busy schedule, so our fun got cancelled. I battled feeling like junk all night and spent the morning catching up on sleep, Eric worked on cars and my parents helped us with yard work. It was NOT the fun day we'd hoped for but it relieved a lot of stress and we were so grateful! And thankfully I was able to clear everything out before my infection turned into full blown mastitis (nursing has been a beast this time around as far as plugged ducts, etc goes. Ugh!)
• Mia, James and I took my parents to the zoo and Mia loved having new faces to play with there!

We decided very last minute to pack up and go to Utah for a week since Eric was going to be working so much again. Don't ask me why I keep thinking I can handle things like this with TWO kids... ha ha! I think it's a good idea until I'm in the thick of it, then I wonder why I'm crazy enough to ever leave my house with Mia and James (even though they truly are amazing kids!) by myself. Mia is a pro at traveling and James handled the trip pretty well himself! We had so much fun visiting both families but I'm definitely relieved that the next time we go back, Eric will be with me ;) We were in Utah during New Year's and Mia absolutely had a blast ringing in the New Year with cousins, but we did miss Eric like crazy! That was our first New Year's we've ever spent apart... I don't plan on doing that again :) Some highlights I don't want to forget about our trip to Utah and New Year's celebration:

• All the good food we indulged in. SO MUCH FOOD! It's a good thing I didn't have the expectations to get back in shape in December because... yeah. I couldn't stop stuffing my face!
• Visiting the Christmas lights and Nativity scene at the St. George Temple. We weren't able to make it to the Temple in Arizona with Eric which I'm still bummed about, but I'm glad I was able to take Mia this season! She wanted so badly to go inside the Temple to see Heavenly Father and baby Jesus. She cried the most heart breaking of cries when we told her we weren't going inside. "I just knock on da door and see my Father and baby Jesus!" Sweet, sweet girl!
• The excitement of spending time with our Brinkerhoff family! Mia had a blast with her cousins!! She talks non stop about her cousins/friends!
• Mia loved playing outside in the freezing temps and old snow! I sure am glad that we don't live in that climate anymore, but her excitement for it all almost made me miss the snow! Good thing we will be back in a month to play in the snow!
• We went to the high school to play games and play on bounce house slides that the little town puts on for the kids for New Year's Eve. Mia was a little tornado and it was so hard to tear her away from the bouncy slides! We were all in bed before 10pm though and I couldn't have been happier about that, ha ha! 
• Did I mention all the good food we ate during our trip?!

Our trip is never long enough to stay with each family for enough time or see all of our friends. I'm grateful we were able to go visit for a bit but even more grateful to go home to my love! We sure miss Eric when we're gone! I'm already counting down the days until the 2016 holiday season ;) Hopefully we will be more rested and have more time to play as a family of 4... other than Eric working so much, I can't complain! The holidays were good to us in 2015!