Christmas!!!

You know, if you people don't post on here anymore, this is going to become my blog and I'm just going to keep writing more and more random, off-the-wall stuff until someone stops me...so yes, I will take a lack of comments as permission to start writing stuff that doesn't fall in the realm of family news. You've been warned.

That being said....Christmas!!

 Once again, we kinda sucked in the picture taking department and the videos are too long and full of commentary for me to want to edit them right now. So I've put a couple of pictures in but you'll have to rely on my stellar descriptive abilities for the rest. I'm so sorry.

Christmas vacation started the way all good vacation should start: with some BYU football!! The first night we had the rest of the Wall family in from out of the town was the Poinsettia Bowl and since I was unable to actually drive to San Diego to participate the way I should have, we went for second best and had the group over to pig out and cheer on the Cougars. The first three quarters were stressful but our Cougars took care of business in the fourth just fine. (Non-football fans: means we won.) I don't remember much else about this night because I was too focused on the game. I'm sure people talked and ate and the kids did cute things.

Almost all of the rest of the vacation was filled with lots of fun board games and good food and conversation. Zizah did get her first tooth the day after the BYU game. It's that white spot on the bottom in this picture.

This blog post was going to have so much more detail until I waited over a month to write it. Sorry about that too.

Christmas Eve dinner was at a seafood buffet, which was pretty fun. My kids ate their fill of fried rice, so they were happy. Winner for that night for me was definitely the coconut shrimp. Yummmm.

The big family Christmas Eve program that night was....well-intended. Let's just saying that many small children, after dinner, right before bedtime - not the best time to try for sit-still-and-read spiritual time. After we got our little family home (by just ourselves) we were able to watch some Christmas movies (some on lds.org and some of our DVDs) which was really nice (and more their level of reverence and fun at the time).

The presents part of Christmas this year was (as usual) larger than originally anticipated. I did much better at sticking to my goal of not buying everyone everything plus a pony. Santa was quite generous with Hazel's bike (though it was orange instead of pink and is just a bit too big), Speed's train (though the one he received from Jaxson is WAAAY cooler), and Zizah's O Ball (not that she had any clue what was going on except all of the sudden people WANTED her to rip paper). Santa brought me silk sheets for my bed (seriously. awesome.) and Jacob got ::ahem:: a new church shirt. Not quite a lump of coal...but close. 

We all got lots of other fun stuff too - it was a really fun Christmas. And for those who had our family in this year's Knutti exchange - we're not ungrateful, just uncommunicative. Thank you all very much for the gifts. (Yes, I know a blanket thank you on a blog post 6 weeks later is lame, but there ya go anyway.)

So, I was going for present of the year with my present to Jacob. I even managed to have it be the last present, hidden at the back under the tree. He even thought I was messing with him when I kept saying there was just one more present in the back. But I didn't quite win - more on the usurper in a second. I got him a rosewood music box with space to store his cuff links. Okay, okay, it's a man-jewelry box. The man has a lot of cuff links! It was all custom-made and engraved with a sappy saying that no one got but us (as intended) and (as usual) he gave me a look of total confusion after he opened it. :) However, that was a really GOOD sign. The last time I got him a really cool, complete surprise present (surfing lessons in San Diego 3 years ago), I got the same response and he LOVED those. Same thing this time.

 However, I did NOT win present of the year, even with all my sappiness. That particular honor goes to the present given to us as a couple by the rest of the Wall family. They got us ::drumroll please:: a BLENDTEC BLENDER. (Did you hear that choir of angels just now?) If my excitement seems out of place for a blender, Google it. Just do it. The blender will get its own post sometime soon with pictures and overly detailed descriptions of what we've made in it. Will it blend? Yes, yes it will. It is awesome.

We had a really fun rest of our Christmas playing with all our fun new toys, playing some more board games and eating all kinds of lovely food. As usual, I could go on (more) about the good parts of Christmas vacation - the only bad part was that it ended too soon and work took over my life for the next month. But now things are slowing down and everyone can look forward to (dread?) lots more blog posts about the happenings in Phoenix. You know you're all jealous that I went swimming on Groundhog's Day. Outside.

Oh, I should mention we spent a TON of time playing WiiU over Christmas. We knew we'd love it but I've been surprised just HOW much the kids like to play, even with out us. Even now (seriously - the second I'm writing this), this is the scene at our house.

Yes, it's that awesome.

Ok. let's see what other random pictures I have from Christmas time...

Oh look - it's me! Check out how long my hair has gotten. For now.... :)

And then here's one of the harvests from our garden to make a salad to go with dinner the day before Christmas Eve. That's right - we pulled that out of the ground in December, folks. Phoenix rocks.

And here's a picture of Zizah for the road. Yep, she knows she's that cute.