Crazy Crazy Christmas Time!

After spending a crazy week up in good ol' PG, we were tired, and sick and sick and tired of being that way so Daddy put his foot down and told the Grandparents that we would be staying home for Christmas Day this year. Grandma Naugle wasn't overly happy about this (in fact I think she thought she was going to convince us to stay the night at her house on Christmas ever) Every year since Andrew and I have been together... even when we were dating, we have spent Christmas morning with his family at their house. The Cowley side does things a little differently. Since I am the youngest and all of my siblings were married and had children before I even got married, my parents quickly decided that it made more sense for them to come to everyone else rather than to have to tear all the kids away from their Christmas gifts. So my amazing parents spend every Christmas traveling from Logan to Payson to visit every family and give the kids their gifts. But Andrew is the oldest child in his family so Pam is used to everyone being at her house for Christmas. With Stevie being on his mission I think her world is changing a lot and its hard for her... and we, sadly, are not helping. But she was a good sport about it and she and Steve and Jake all made the trip to our house to see us on. It was so nice to see everyone and to get to just be at home and play and be our own little family.
We got to see Dave and Dyl on Christmas Eve Eve. (yes... its like holiday in our house) They came over for a 'late night' and we built our lego train track and played games until well after bedtime. We are too lucky to have such awesome friends... who are really more like family.
On Christmas Eve Uncle Stevie called home from Brazil and we even got to see him on Skype for a while. It was fun to see his ever happy face and for the kids to get to interact with him a little. We spent all day at Grandma Naugle's and had a Christmas Eve dinner with the family.
Christmas was a blast. So relaxed and just plane fun. AnDee and Pep scored big time (actually all of us scored big time) Santa brought a kitchen set and a rocking (spring??) horse and mom and dad got a baby (and accessories) for Bug and lots of car and train things for Pep. The Grandparents were all too generous as always and Pep got a little tractor that he can ride on from Nana and Poppy and a remote control train from Grandma and Grandpa and AnDee got a ridiculous amount of dress ups from Nanny and Poppy and little Leap pad lap top from Grandma and Grandpa. As I am every year Im totally overwhelmed by the amount of gifts we all received. Saying we are "blessed" would be a gross understatement.
I got very few pictures this year... I have been so bad about that lately but here are a few

 Team work. Pep likes to pull down on the legs while AnDee rides to give her a little extra bounce.... she really gets going sometimes

 This is Peps side of the kitchen set. Its the manly side, complete with grill

 And this is our little homemakers side. She has become quite the little mommy.

We are so grateful for the Gospel and of course our Savior. We try very hard to remind the kids about Jesus and Christmas being his day. I hope that they are really understanding. It is so easy to lose Christ in all the toys.

P.S. As a super extra surprise, Andrew printed my blog into books! They are beautiful and I love them. Makes me feel like I am actually "journaling" like I should be.

HO HO HO!!

Pep loves saying HO HO HO! every time he sees Santa. Its like he is speaking Santa's language and whats cooler than that?
This last weekend was a crazy one! First we attended a funeral on Thurs. Then we had Andrews company party on Friday then the Cowley family Party on Saturday (All this time Andrews cousins from Colorado were here so we were trying to squeeze in some time with them) and then my parents farewell was Sunday and then we had a little break on Monday (which was when I finally made it to my doctor to get a something for the ridiculous sinus infection/cough Ive had. Oh and AnDee went on her first skiing adventure) and then on Tues. Uncle Jake returned home from his mission. We decided that instead of driving back and forth from Payson every day for 6 days in a row, we would just stay at my parents house. Oh... I forgot to throw in that Andrew spent a few days in Canada last week so I got to prepare for this extra long weekend by myself. And lucky Andrew got to go straight to my parents house from the airport. Things need to slow down a bit...
Anyway... back to Santa. Santa comes to the Cowley family party every year and this year was no different. My kids like to see Santa in movies and on pictures and whatnot but when he appears in real life... they don't care too much for him. We were at the mall a few weeks ago and Santa was there taking pictures with kids and such and even from a distance AnDee was hiding behind me and Pep wouldn't even look in his direction (they take after me in this category. I was terrified of Santa as a kid) So I thought that Santa being at the family party was going to be less than successful for my children. I was wrong. As soon as he walked in the room Pep kept speaking in his second language saying "ho ho ho!" over and over. When his name was called he went right over and sat on his lap. He wasn't exactly overjoyed by it as you can see from the pics but he wasn't scared out of his mind either. Success? I think so. AnDee took some persuading but we got her up there too and she even talked to him a bit! When he asked her if she would try hard to be nice to "The Pep" (hehe) she said she would. Sadly we didn't get any pictures of our own so I had to steal the ones my brother got on his phone (Thanks Jason?)

Like I said before, Andrews cousins from Colo were here so on Thurs. night we took them up to Temple Square to see the lights. We have really struggled with the picture taking lately and this is the extent of what we got while we were up there....

 Isn't Andrews hat lovely?

On Monday Andrew and Pam took AnDee skiing for her first time!! I was SO sad I couldn't go. SO sad. But I was sick.. and fairly pregnant. It just didn't seem wise to go skiing.  They took her right during her nap time. Hehe. You'll see from the pics how that turned out. But she did great and we got some super cute video of it.

Getting fitted for her little skis...

 Ready to hit the slopes!

 Trying so hard to make a pizza shape with her skis..

 This is what happens when you take AnDee out during nap time. Andrews back was hurting so he laid down for a minute to stretch it out... without a word, Bug flopped down next to him and was out within seconds. She slept like that... right on the side of the mountain with skiers passing by... for about 45 minutes, at which point her dad had to force her to wake up and get moving. She is just to stinking cute.

Tuesday was the big day! Uncle Jake finally made his triumphant return from Brazil. He is such a good kid, its going to be so fun to have him around again. 

Everyone waiting...

 This is how we entertained the kids while waiting. And yes... AnDee did wait too long to turn around and got wiped out at the end.

 Meeting Pep and Wyatt for the first time..

My favorite part was when he went to give me a hug and looked down at my belly and simply said "whoa" yes... Im huge, thanks for the reminder Jacob. ;)

And here are a couple of pics I somehow missed... Probably cause we were all incredibly sick (weird I know.) When we had the flu the day before thanksgiving, AnDee was getting to the end of it and was starting to feel penned up so I somehow mustard to strength and will to put the tree up with the kids while dad was passed out on the couch. Im still not sure how I accomplished this but I did and it made the kids happy so I guess it was worth it. ;)

I apologize that my posts lately are huge and probably don't make a lot of sense. I should be doing a bunch of smaller posts but thats not how I roll. I like to wait until it all piles up on me and then I throw everything together in to one giant post. You're welcome?? 

P.S. Remember how I told you that we were all starting to get healthy (thanks to quarantine) just in time to go spend the weekend up at Grandparents houses and get sick again? Well guess what?! We are all sick again. Poor Pep got hit the worst again. I have never seen a kid so gooey. His eyes are as boogery as his nose and his ears are incredibly infected. I think we are going back in to hiding. I feel like I don't want my children to leave the house until winter is over!