Family Party in Alabama - Pre-Christmas Fun

Last Christmas if you had told my family that we'd all get together in Alabama for the next Christmas we probably all would have through that was a crazy dream.  It just seemed so impossible on so many levels.  

First of all we haven't been all together as siblings and spouses in six years - and back then only two of the grandkids were even born.*

We were almost all together 3 years ago when Billy came home from his mission, but Brandon was at Basic Training.  A year a half ago we'd been able to get all the cousins together at Lindsey's house in Houston, but Billy and Hillary and my parents hadn't been able to make it. And we were almost all together at Billy's wedding this summer, but Brandon and David couldn't make it.  Honesty I think we'd almost given up on the idea of the cards aligning perfectly enough for us all to be together ever again.   

Second of all Alabama isn't exactly a place you'd think that a Utah based family could gather very easily.  Last year we knew that Brandon and I would be moving our family to Alabama, but it seemed like we'd be the farthest from home.  

Well as I've learned over the past few years - a lot can change and it can change very quickly.    

The first big change was that Emily and David decided to move from Colorado to North Carolina so David could get a Doctorate Degree.  Suddenly my house in Alabama became the center point between Emily in North Carolina and Lindsey in Houston, Texas.

The second big change was that my Dad found out he could retire earlier than he planned.  He and my mom immediately turned in their papers to go on a mission.  They were called to go to Sao Paulo Brazil to the same mission where my dad served as a young missionary.  They would be office missionaries and help out the Mission President who happened to be one of my Dad's former missionary companions.  (They requested this assignment so it's not as big of a coincidence as it seems.)  They would report to the Missionary Training Center in Provo in January of 2016 and then go to Brazil for 2 years.  

With my parents planning to leave the country for two years we all started talking about the need to have one last family get together before they left.  Since Mom, Dad, Billy, Becca, and Hillary would all have to travel to visit Lindsey, Emily, or me anyway we decided that it would work best to have everyone gather at my house.  The fact that I could provide a big house and promise snow-free weather was an added bonus. 

So for the past six or so months we have all been eagerly awaiting this big family Christmas Party in Alabama.  The day finally came on Monday December 21.  

Brandon and I both woke up super early to finish getting ready for our guests to arrive.  Brandon had to finish putting together the dining room table so that we'd have somewhere for everyone to eat.  I had to make a last minute run to Walmart for stuff that we still needed. 

We knew that Lindsey and her family were planning to drive through part of the night to reach us, and we were expecting them around lunch time.  Since Fort Rucker has some crazy gate access procedures we were going to meet them outside the gate and bring them on.  But then Derrick threw a wrench in that plan.  

He'd broken out in hives all over his body on Sunday.  The only thing we could think of was that he had an allergy to the polyester pajamas we'd given him for Christmas. The rash hadn't gone away by Monday morning and Derrick was itching like crazy.  His lips also seemed to be swelling up - which started to worry me.  So I got an appointment at the on post clinic and took him in.  The doctor checked everything and said that it was an allergy, but so far it was just affecting his skin.  So she called in a prescription for benedryl.  

Meanwhile, Lindsey and John arrived at the visitor center and got their passes all set up so they could enter the Fort without needing an escort.  They arrived at my house just a few minutes after I got home from the clinic.   

It was so great to see them and they were so happy to finally be done travelling.  But Lindsey had her own sick kid problems.  Knoxx had been running a fever for a few days and it looked like he had white spots in his throat.  So Lindsey had to take him to an urgent care to have him looked at.  It wasn't strep, but they did proscribe antibiotics.  

I was still busy getting things ready for the rest of the family to arrive.  Lindsey has another foreign exchange student this year.  Her name is Ani and she's from Armenia.  Ani seemed bored so I took her with me to go check into the cabins at Lake Tholocco here on Fort Rucker.  We'd booked these cabins months ago because we thought it would be nice to have a little bit more space for the family to spread out during the visit.  So we'd booked 2 two bedroom cabins.  Lindsey's family would have one and share it with Hillary.  And Emily's family would have the other and share it with Billy and Becca.  My mom and dad would sleep in the guestroom at my house.   

Ani and I got the keys from the office and then took some groceries over to the cabins.  I'd seen the outside of the cabins before but I'd never seen the inside.  After we went inside I joked, "okay new plan.  You guys are going to stay at my house and I'm going to stay here."  Each cabin had two bedrooms with a queen size bed.  The bedding was provided.  There was also a bathroom, a kitchen, a screened in porch, a small dining room area, and a little living room.  I knew everyone would love staying there. 

We got back from the cabins and found Lindsey sleeping on the couch with the two little sick boys.  John was sleeping in the guestroom.  I was glad that they all had a chance to relax from their long drive from Houston. 

 Brandon and I started making soups for dinner.  We'd picked soup because it would be easy to keep warm while we waited for everyone else to arrive.  I was kind of getting nervous about our strategy for the next two hours.  The visitor centers closed at 4:00 which meant that Brandon and I would have to escort everyone on post.  Our plan was for both of us to drive out the gate and meet up with the travelers.  I'd drive one car through the gate and he'd drive the other.  As long as we were driving we could use our military ID's to get everyone through the gates.  The problem was that Emily's family was coming from the north through the Ozark gate and my parents and siblings were coming from the south through the Daleville gate.  I kept imagining that they'd all show up at the same time and we'd have to make one group wait while we helped the other through.

That didn't end up happening though.  My sister Hillary called and let me know that they were almost to Daleville.  I told her to meet us at the McDonalds there. Brandon and I left Lindsey and John in charge and we hurried to get to McDonalds.  It was so exciting to pull up next to their rental van and see everyone get out.  My mom had told me that Brandon would be the first person she hugged and she made a bee line right for him.

It was so great to hug everyone.  My parents had flown out from Utah with my brother Billy and his wife Becca.  My sister Hillary was there also.  And as a just about last minute addition her boyfriend/almost fiance Joe had been invited along too. (This was probably the only chance many of us will have to meet Joe before the almost-inevitable-yet-still-hypothetical wedding takes place.)

Everyone jumped back in the cars and we got them all through the gate without any problems.  Soon we were bringing them into our home.  Derrick got so excited when he saw my dad.  I've been telling him that "Papa" was coming, but I don't think he understood until he actually saw my dad walk through the door.  Derrick got a big grin on his face and jumped up and down yelling "Papa, Papa!"

We were all starving so we hurried out to the garage to eat dinner.  I'd had fun re-arranging the house to hold so many people.  Moving the dining room out to the garage was a great idea.  If we'd been having this party in the summer it would have been impossible because of the heat.  But in the winter it worked great.  We put rugs under the table so the concrete wouldn't be so hard and cold on bare feet.   About the only downside to the garage was that water seeps under the door when it rains.  I'd been hoping that it just wouldn't rain, but instead we had three days of heavy rain forecasted.  I just hoped it wouldn't flood the garage too much.

 Brandon had finished constructing the table, but he knew he wouldn't have time to stain it until after everyone left.  So we just put tablecloths over it to protect the wood.  I'm seriously in love with this table and I can't wait until it's done.  It's freaking 8 feet long and four feet wide.

 While we were eating I got a call from Emily saying they were almost to Ozark.  I gave her directions to a Thrift store parking lot that's close to the Ozark gate.  Brandon and I hurried out to go meet her and bring her family through the gate.

It was so fun to walk through the door with Emily.  Lindsey and Hillary both poked their heads around the corner of my entry way and started smiling so big when they saw Emily.

Then there was more hugging and talking.  I think the kids were a little overwhelmed with all these aunts and uncles and cousins running around.

Since I'd moved the dinning room out to the garage, we'd been able to turn the real dinning room into a familyroom/toyroom/extra guest room.  We put all the toys in there and the kids loved playing in there. We also had the futon in there as a couch during the day, and it was Joe's bed at night. 

 Derrick discovered the Billy is really fun to play with.  Later all the kids discovered that Becca was willing to chase them around for hours.

 Here's Emily's family enjoying the soup.  We'd borrowed some chairs and a card table from my friend Kara.  Kara also gave me the recipe for the Mexican Chicken soup and she's now become a family hero because the soup was AMAZING.

 Brandon got out his new little helicopter and had entertaining everyone with that.

 Everyone hug out and talked for a while, but soon it was time to take everyone over to the cabins.  My parent's got their things out of the rental car and Brandon stayed at home with them while everyone else went to the cabins.  I had a line of 3 cars following me through the dark as we drove the 10 minutes up to Lake Tholocco.  Everyone was super excited to see the cabins and figure out where they were sleeping.  The cabins were right next to each other and the kids ran back and forth for a long time. My kids wanted to stay there all night, but I told them we had our own beds and that we'd come to the cabins later.

Before I left, my mom called me with some bad news.  She'd left her bag at the Pensacola Airport two and a half hours away. She and Brandon (the energizer bunny) were going to drive back there and get it that night.  They ended up making it back home around 3:00 am after driving through crazy rain storms almost all night.  But they had the bag.

On the morning of Tuesday December 22 it was time for one of the most important parts of the whole week - taking a family picture. We've attempted this several times over the years.  We've tried taking our own in the back yard, and we've tried having a family friend take a professional style picture, but it's just never worked out.  So this time my Dad wanted us go to a professional photographer in a studio and have them take the picture.  He put me in charge of finding one.

I asked for a recommendation on the Fort Rucker Wives page and one name kept coming up with rave reviews - Dunaway Studios in Enterprise.  They really lived up to their reputation.  Shawn was the lady I talked to about everything and she was so professional and friendly.  I loved working with her.  At first she talked me into doing an outdoor portrait, but as the weather turned nasty we decided to do the studio - which was what my dad wanted in the first place.

When it came time to do the portrait Shawn and her husband Tommy were amazing.  They knew just how to pose us to make us look good.  And that's saying a lot when there are 9 children under the age of 7 involved.  I wish I could show you all the pictures that we took - but there are copy-write issues involved.  I can't resist showing you at least one though.  Sorry, I totally cheated and took this from a screen shot off the website.  I think we look like the cast of a TV show.  I can't say enough good about the Dunaways.  If you are anywhere near Enterprise you really should check them out.

After we finished up with the family picture it was time for a field trip to the Fort Rucker Visitor Center in Daleville.  This was so all the adults could get visitor passes so they could come onto Fort Rucker by themselves. Since Lindsey and John already had their passes I gave them all the food for lunch and they took it to their cabin to get it ready for everyone.  Brandon dropped me off at the visitor center and took the kids up to the cabin while I waited with everyone else in the super boring visitor center.  Imagine going to the DMV with your siblings and that's about how that hour was spent.

Then we went up to the cabins where Lindsey had sandwiches waiting for us.  I thought I took pictures of the insides of the cabins, but I guess I forgot.  I did take this one of outside the cabins.

After lunch we went on a walk down to Lake Tholocco.

 Everyone was still in matching clothes so everything still looked like a photo shoot.

 There was a little rock skipping contest.

 Everyone had fun exploring the dock.  Later, as the rains continued to fall, this dock would end up under water.

 Here's Veronica looking super cute.

 Gradually people went back up to the cabins.  Billy was one of the first.  As Derrick and I walked up to the cabins we heard a trumpeting sound. At first I thought it was one of the pre-recorded trumpet sounds that plays on post during different parts of the day.  But then I realized it was Billy practicing his French Horn.  He gave us all a great concert.

 The cabins were so relaxing.  We hung out there for a long time.

 I love this picture of Brandon and David walking with their kids on their shoulders.

 I could have stayed at the cabins all afternoon.  But I was getting sleepy.  Derrick was also getting really itchy again and I'd left his medicine at home.  So Derrick, Veronica, my mom, and dad and I all ended up going back to my house.  We all took naps.  Brandon came home a little bit later with Emily and some of the kids and he started making dinner.  In the evening everyone came back and we had taco salad for dinner.

 Charlotte had taken these glasses off a stuffed dog that she got for Christmas. She wore them all afternoon and looked super cute.

 We didn't really have a plan for after dinner.  That's not a problem in my family.  Everyone started playing an old family favorite game called Rolly-Polly.  This is one of those games that my siblings invented on boring Sunday afternoons.  I was just a little too old to appreciate it when they invented it so I never actually played it until this night.  Joe was also introduced to the ways of the game. Its all very easy in a complicated way. You start as the score keeper and then move up to the person who tries to get the ball.  Then you become the newcomer (known as the cucumber) and then if you are lucky you become the defending champion.  There are tons of little rules involving how the ball can be rolled, and how to score.

 This game kept everyone entertained for a very long time.

 I'm not kidding, they played this forever.

 After that everyone moved on to playing other family favorite games like Good Morning Judge.  I opted to make myself busy in the kitchen with making treats for Christmas Eve. I wasn't interested in playing, but it was good to hear everyone having a good time.

Earlier in the evening we'd had everyone pick a job from some Popsicle sticks that I'd written jobs on.  We did this at Lindsey's house a few years ago and it really helped keep the house clean without making one person feel like they were doing all the work.  Each job was really simple like "pick up shoes" or " vacuum living room"  but all together they resulted in a pretty clean house.  

Everyone who helped got to put a puff ball into a jar.  This is a system that Brandon and I adopted to try to get the kids to help out around the house.  We told the girls that as soon as the jar was full they would get an ice cream sandwich.  The jar was super full, but not quite there yet.  Some how Asher hadn't been able to help clean up the house so he asked me if there was anything he could do to help.  I told him he could clean the toy room.  And he did - pretty much all by himself.  He did such a good job that I let him get a giant puff ball.  And that filled up the jar enough that everyone earned an ice cream sandwich.  

The kids were all pretty excited about that.  Asher and Rocklond were so inspired by the ice cream sandwich that they started cleaning my house even more.  Before they left for the night they'd made everyone's beds and done a few other jobs too.  They'd earned at least 7 new puff balls. 

 The kids started getting tired so it was time for the cabin dwellers to go back to their homes.  Brandon and I put our kids to bed and then stayed up watching The Tourist with my parents.  Then we went to bed.

The next day was Wednesday the 23rd - Christmas Eve Eve.  We'd had several ideas for things we could do as a group.  But this incessant rain was ruining those plans.  One place we could still go was the indoor Aviation Museum here at Fort Rucker.  So we went there after breakfast.

 The kids were all really impressed by all the helicopters.  And everyone thought it was cool that they could go inside a Chinook.

 Asher and Rocklond liked pretending they were about to go into battle.

 The kids did a fairly good job of staying together as a group as we looked at everything.

 Everyone's favorite thing was the cock pit that they could climb inside.

 Derrick got sick of being with the group so we went on our own little walk around the museum.

 We went back to the house and had quesadillas for lunch.  Earlier in the day my dad had paid for 8 tickets for Star Wars Episode VII so that his kids could all go see it.  Hillary and Joe were invited to go with the rest of us, but they'd already seen the movie and decided to help my parents out with watching all 9 grandkids.  Billy, Becca, John, and David had also seen the movie already, but they wanted to see it again.

My parents rental van had 8 seats so we were all able to ride to the theater together.  It was fun to be able to talk as adults and not worry about our kids. When we got to the theater we sat in a long line on one row.  It was so exciting to watch that movie with my siblings.  We all used to sit on the couch together and watch the original trilogy, we'd gone as kids to see the Episode I together, and now here we were watching episode 7.  I was sitting next to Lindsey and at one point we just turned to each other and grinned.  "This is so great." we both whispered and then went back to watching the movie.

When the movie was over we had a good discussion about our theories for the next episode.  Some times I feel like I have to hide the Star Wars nerd part of my personality.  But I didn't need to worry about that when I was with my siblings.

We came back to my house and Hillary had Hawaiian Haystacks waiting for us.  After dinner it seemed like the kids got grumpy pretty fast so the cabin people left a lot earlier than they had the day before.  That was okay though because we had plans for a big sleepover the next night.

Brandon and I put our kids to bed and then continued our spy thriller theme by watching Mission Impossible 5 with my parents.  I'd gone to see that movie while Brandon was in SERE and I felt bad that he'd never seen it so I'd bought it for him when it came out on DVD.  He really liked it.

We went to bed that night super excited for all the fun that we had waiting for us on Christmas Eve.  But that's a subject for another post.

*If you want an example of how much things have changed in the past 6 years since the last time we were all together you should check out this post. http://illguthlife.blogspot.com/2009/12/great-sleep-over-of-2009.html

Early Family Christmas - 2015

I realized that the only major holidays we celebrated on the right days this year were New Years and Halloween. (Seriously, we celebrated Easter in March before Brandon went to WOCS, we watched Independence Day Fireworks on July 2, and we celebrated Thanksgiving on Black Friday) So it should come as no surprise that we celebrated Christmas almost a week early.  

We moved Christmas up because my family will be in town over real Christmas and we all agreed it would be too crazy to try to have 6 different family units all trying to celebrate Christmas together.  So this way we were able to enjoy our own little family time and traditions before everyone arrived.  

The fun started with the last day of school.  Some genius decided that the last day of school for the year was the perfect day to have pajama day.  This was great!  Everyone was in great moods as we got ready for this last day.  I did make sure the kids were wearing clean pajamas to school, but I didn't worry about brushing their hair.  Derrick was funny.  Brandon put him into pajamas, but Derrick didn't understand what was going on.  So he found his real clothes and made sure we helped him change into those. 

The kids watched the Polar Express at school and they came home with little bells.  Derrick also came home with at least 5 different ornaments that his teachers had helped him make at school.  I still need to take a picture of them all, but it touched my heart to see so much stuff that he'd helped make.  He usually doesn't participate when we do crafts at home because my attention gets split between helping Charlotte and Lydia and making sure Veronica doesn't eat all the craft supplies. I'm so glad he's able to go to pre-school where the staff can help him do little projects. 

The kids came home and we all were so excited that school is out for the next three weeks. I'm sure that we'll all be over joyed to start school again in January, but for now it's great to be free.  

Charlotte made this cute little sled for her reindeer Antler.     

 Friday the 18th became our Christmas Eve.  Brandon still had class, but that was okay because it was his last day for a while. The kids and I spent the morning vacuuming the house (I told them that Santa checks all the rooms to make sure they are clean before he leaves new toys.)

Then we spent the afternoon cooking food for our Christmas Eve dinner.  Here's Lydia helping me roll out dough for crescent rolls.

Brandon came home for lunch and talked me through making kjottkaker which are little Norwegian meat cakes and are amazing.  He also helped peel potatoes for mashed potatoes.  Later he'd put together the rice crem.  But other than that I was running the show in the kitchen.  It was a lot of work, but I LOVE this food so it was all worth it.

I turned on old Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concerts on youtube and the kids watched those while I finished things up in the kitchen.  There was such a happy spirit in our home.

 We'd invited the Missionaries over to have dinner with us so there'd be an extra reason to make all the special food.  They joked that if tonight was Christmas Eve they should be allowed to call their families tomorrow.

 Here's my plate with my half eaten food.  (I was really excited to eat the kjottkaker.)  I'd given myself a free pass on what I could eat for the next 24 hours and I was taking advantage of it.

 As always the rice crem was a hit - at least with the adults.  The missionaries said it tasted like marshmallows.

 The missionaries helped us move some furniture around and then they shared a short Christmas message with us.  Then they left.  We plan to save the Christmas Eve Party stuff like dancing around the tree for real Christmas Eve when my family is here so we had to make up new traditions for this night.  Brandon read How the Grinch Stole Christmas to the kids.

We also gave everyone new pajamas.  Derrick got ones with the Hulk on them.  He took a minute to decide that he wanted to wear them, but then he wore them for like 36 hours straight.

 I read the kids the Night Before Christmas.

 Then, I kid you not, we sat around and sang Christmas Carols.  It sounds so impossible, but the kids played and Brandon and I sang together.  We all had a great time.  I'd kind of worried that we'd be trying to force Christmas by doing it early and that it would feel fake, but really this night felt just like Christmas Eve.

Usually the kids' bedtime is at 7:00 (it gets dark here at 4:30 right now so 7:00 feels like midnight), but we let them stay up until around 8:00.  Soon the girls were asking to go to bed.  So we hurried to put out milk and cookies.  Lydia had written Santa a note so we put that out too.

 We had another magic moment when all the kids lined up in front of the tree wearing their new pajamas.

 The kids all went to bed fairly easy, but Brandon and I waited about an hour or so before we started putting out the presents.  Mercifully, we'd already wrapped them all the night before.

 Here are the cradles all painted and ready to be played with.

I just have to say that I was really happy with what we could give our kids this year.  Sure a lot of the presents were from thrift stores and yard sales, but that was because our kids are rough with toys and I prefer to buy things that have some experience in them. Our economic situation has improved a lot over the past 6 years. I'm in awe every time Brandon get's paid these days.  He makes as much in a two week time period now as he made in a month back when the twins were born. (I think that says more about how little he was making back then rather than how much he is making now.)

This was the first year that we were able to provide all the kids' toys on our own.  (The past two years we were selected to participate in the Santa's Workshop at Fort Hood.) This was also the first year where I didn't stress out about money.  Other years I've had to figure out how we'll afford to pay all our bills and still have money left over for gifts.  This year my biggest concern was whether or not we should try to make a double student loan payment this month.  (I opted to skip it for this month so we could have some wiggle room.)  

 Not having to worry about as much about money led to some problems with the stockings.  Brandon and I had both bought things for the stockings - thinking that the other parent hadn't bought that much.  They ended up stuffed to the brim and very heavy.  We'll have communicate a little better about this next year.

 Brandon woke up early on Saturday so he could take care of signing out from work as soon as possible.  This was his first break since the beginning of August and he was super happy about being away from work for a while. He came back home and crawled into bed with me.  The kids gave us a gift by sleeping in until 7:30.  The we heard Derrick come out of his room followed by Veronica yelling from her crib, "Da-deeeeee, I want outttttt!"  Charlotte and Lydia were up soon after and soon everyone was checking out their gifts in the living room.

 I wont give you a run down of everyone's gifts, but everyone was really happy.  Probably one of the favorites was a little plush pig that I bought for 25 cents at a thrift store.  Charlotte loved it - possibly even more than the Rudolph that she' asked for and that I'd bought off of Amazon for $18.  (This is the other reason I buy as many second hand gifts as possible.)

After the presents were open the kids noticed their bulging stockings.  They were very happy by all the toys and candy inside.

 Derrick loves train crossing gates so I made sure to buy him one of those.  It was such a tiny little gift, but I knew that he'd spend hours opening and shutting the gate.  I was right.  He set it up with the rest of his tracks right away and played with it all day.

 Brandon bought  new toy helicopter and had fun flying that around.

 As you can see the living room became a mess.  But it was Christmas so none of us cared.

 The girls set up all the new little toy houses in a circle and played with them for a long time.

 For years I've told Brandon that I'd buy him a table saw for Christmas one year.  Well I didn't do that this year, but I did let him rent one.  He'd been looking forward to working on our new table all week so I had no issues letting him run off to Home Depot and then spending the day out in the garage.

 The kids played with toys all day, Brandon played with tools, and I sat on the couch and read Brandon Sandersons FireFight all day.  Best Christmas ever!

I also ran to the store to buy food for when my family will be here.  That's one of the nice things about celebrating on a non-holiday.  You can still get stuff done if you need to.

 This isn't a picture of the finished table, but you get the idea of what it's going to look like. It's going to be 8 feet long when it's fully extended, but Brandon's making it so it will have a leaf that comes out so it's "only" 6 feet long.

 We let the kids stay up as late as they wanted which turned out to be around 10:00. They helped us clean up the living room so it wouldn't be a pig stye on Sunday.  Lydia and Derrick ended up sleeping in the livingroom.

 Charlotte fell asleep on her floor.  (Sometimes I wonder why we bother with beds and bedrooms for these children.)

 And Veronica was in her bed, but then I made the mistake  of going in there for this picture.  I wanted to show her cuddling with the wooden train that I'd given her.  Instead she got up and didn't really go back to sleep until 12:00 and then was up again around 3:00.  She also demonstrated that she knew how to climb out of her bed.

 She ended up laying next to Lydia for a while.  I keep forgetting to mention this, but I feel like it's important - over Thanksgiving Veronica became the same age that Charlotte and Lydia were when we moved to Texas.  They seemed so young when we made that journey three years ago.  And now my baby is the same age.

Christmas is always a difficult time of year for me to warm up to.  I feel like a lot of the time I'm just annoyed by the whole thing, and I hold the good stuff at arms length. For most of my life I've noticed that I don't really like Christmas until its almost over.  Maybe that's why I like celebrating it early.  Because now I feel like Christmas has worked it's little magic and I'm excited for it.  And what's great is that it's not over yet.  There are still 5 more days to enjoy it - and I have my whole family coming to spend Christmas with me.