Christmas Eve!

Christmas eve is spent with my mom and step dad every year. We eat, talk, laugh and play BINGO, for prizes! Playing BINGO has been a tradition for as long as I can remember, even before my parents divorced.

We start with dinner which is always a good thing! We don't want any hungry, grouchy BINGO players. After clean up and enjoying conversation for a bit the game begins.

We play two rounds the first with the prizes wrapped and the second unwrapped. Part of the game is to steal the prizes from one another. It gets a little crazy before the prizes are unwrapped but it gets really crazy once you can see what all of the prizes are. Every one in the end end up with two prizes. Any one that has more than two decide which two they want and throw the rest in the middle. Any one left with one or none get to pick from the middle. It is really a ton of fun!

This year was a little more challenging with two toddlers wanting to be a part of it all. Last year they had only just learned to sit up by them selves so it was no trouble because they couldn't get into anything. After the first round we decided we should open the gifts to each other so that the boys would have something to entertain them while we played the second round. After the gifts were opened all of the kids started getting tired so my sister and her husband wanted to get home to put their boys to bed. Sadly, we were never able to play the second game! The prizes were divvied out and every one ended up saying their good byes.

It was a fun night even though it didn't go as planed. Maybe that tradition will have to be put on hold until the kids can join in the fun.

Top-left to right: Travis, April, Eric, Braxton, Dee Dee, Jayden, Me, Avery, Tom, Cole,
Jed, Lisa & Braelee
Bottom: Ren, Mom, Reed & Nick



HO! HO! HO! MERRY CHRISTMAS!




I loved my moms face in this picture!
On the right is my sister-in-law Lisa and niece Bralee

Braxton & Cole ~~~~~ Jayden & Avery

The two older boys are two weeks apart
The new baby's are only 6 days apart

Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!

Christmas morning we were at my dads house. We woke up had breakfast and then opened presents. We got a lot of great things. It was fun watching Cole open his gifts. Santa was good to him this year ;)

The best was when I picked up the present with no name on it and handed it to my sweet heart. He was a little confused. He opened it up to find a Wii game system. He had no idea I was getting him one for Christmas. My brother helped out with that. Weeks before I called and had him look for one for me. I couldn't have surprised Tom like I did with out his help so,"Thanks Travis."

Top left to right-Travis, Dee Dee, baby Jayden,
Braxton, Dad, Jen,Even, Me, Avery, Tom and Cole
Bottom left to right-Bobby, Brody and Erica

Avery & her cousin Jayden Avery & Gampy Greenhalgh

Sometime during the day Cole watched his uncle Travis play video games

~~~

Christmas night we go to Tom's parents and the tradition we have there is: we open gifts, eat sukiyaki, which is a Japanese meal with meat and vegetables soaked in soy sauce served over rice, and stuff ourselves (Tom's dad went on his mission to Japan). A little after dinner, enough time to let our food digest, we go to the train room and try to get M&M's out of the cars of the trains as they go around the track. And last but not least enjoy being with the family!

The Train Room

Mom and her baby



Cole with some of his cousins: Anne, Molly & Jadea

~~~

On a side note, my sister-in-law got engaged on Christmas as well.

I can't give you much detail about it because I was in the bathroom when it happened! While I was using the bathroom I could hear Dave talking and knew right away what was going on so I finished up as quick as I could. I didn't even wash my hands and I was doing up my belt as I was rushing down the hall. I got into the living room just after she said yes. I heard it but I didn't see it! I was so bumbed! All of this time and I missed it!

Tom noticed I was missing right as Dave started talking but what could he do, ask him to hold that thought until I got back!? Once something like that is in motion you can't really stop it. Oh well! I am so happy for them! Love you Kerri!

Congratulations Dave & Kerri!

p.s. Dave, don't think you'll live this one down any time soon! Haha!

The Happy Couple!

9 Wonderful Years!

I can't believe how quickly time rushes by.

Tom and I celebrated our 9th year of being happily married on December 27th!

Being in Utah made it nice because we took the day and had all kinds of baby sitters.

We began with a couples massage. Sounds lovely but what was supposed to be a nice relaxing 2 hours turned out to be the 2nd most excruciating moment of my life! The 1st being giving birth, of course. By no fault but our own because we thought one hour would be therapeutic with the deep tissue and the last hour would be soft and relaxing. Neither of us said anything thinking it was only going to get better but before we knew it the two hours were up and we were both in pain. Two hours of excruciating pain! I seriously wanted to cry! I couldn't believe we payed to be tortured!-WARNING- I DO NOT RECOMMEND DEEP TISSUE UNLESS YOU ARE PSYCHOTIC!!

After the "wonderful" massage I called my mom, who at the time had the kids. I asked how they were doing and if Avery had taken the bottle I left for her. My mom tells me no but that she did get fed. Huh!? Well, my wonderful sister had a baby only 6 days before me. You can pretty much guess where this is going! That's right, she ended up feeding little Avery! She said it was so awkward. It was my step dads idea. He figured we were sisters and both had baby's and one of them was hungry so why not. I thought it was so funny! Later my sister told me that I owed her big time! Thank You Sister! (I asked if she would mind me telling that story. Embarrassingly she said yes. What a sport!)

We then went to Ruby River for a nice dinner and then went and saw Bedtime Story's.

We had such a nice day together. But really I don't have to be doing much to enjoy being with my best friend, my husband! I love you Tom! Happy Anniversary!

Happy 2009!!

New years eve we went to one of our best friends, Jarrod & Melanie. It has been, you could say, our tradition to spend New Years Eve at there house. We have done it for years. We make Jambalaya for dinner, play games until midnight, watch the ball drop with a glass of Chrystaling Apple Cider and wish each other a happy new year. We then bring in the New Year by playing more games.

This year the guys were going ice fishing New Years morning. They were planning on leaving early so when 4 a.m. hit we decided we might as well stay up and play games until they needed to get ready to leave. We pulled an all nighter! I can't remember the last time I went a full day + without sleep. I think I was more tired after that than I was after having either Cole or Avery!

The boys had fun fishing but were exhausted!

That night we went to a movie and dinner with Tom's family. I have never fallen asleep during a movie until that night. I tried my very hardest to stay awake but sleep won!

We slept great that night!

Avery's Blessing Day/ Tom's 29th Birthday

January 4, 2009 Avery received her blessing given by her Papa!

While we were in Utah we decided to have her blessed there with our family. What a special day! We will never forget the date she was blessed because it was also Tom's birthday!

We had her blessed in my in-laws ward because Tom grew up knowing a lot of the people in their ward and I was never in the ward my mom or my dad are in so it just made sense to do it there.

After Sacrament meeting we went back to my in-laws house and had a light lunch, thanks to all of the family members & friends who helped with the food, and enjoyed every ones company.

We also sang "Happy Birthday" to Tom and ate pie. Tom had to be difficult wanting pie instead of the traditional cake. I guess since it was his b-day I'll forgive him but just this once! Really though, who can resist a good Marie Calenders Banana Cream Pie! Yummy!

Our beautiful girl on her blessing day!
Our attempt at being professional photographers

We

Love

You

Sweet

Avery!

Avery with her Eternal Family
and parents who love her very much!




Grandma Child with the Grand baby's
Top left-all of the grand kids on my moms side: Braxton, Jayden, Avery, Cole and Braelee
along with my sister, Dee Dee, Me and sister-in-law, Lisa



Avery with grandma Booth
and
Gampy & Gammy Greenhalgh



We couldn't get Avery to cooperate with us.
She really does love her grandpa Booth!



Grandpa & Cole

Tom has started Cole on Mountain Dew young!
Not really! Cole is just trying to be sneaky!

The Dress

So I was saying that Avery's blessing dress had a story of it's own, here it is.

Tom had gone skiing so my dad happily drove me around to find a dress. The first place we stopped didn't have any so on to the next. The second store had many beautiful dresses, lots of which looked like little mini wedding dresses. B-E-A-Utiful! I found several I liked but the cheapest one was $75.00! Yeah, expensive for a dress that she is only going to ware once! I ended up buying the one that was $75.00. It was simple but beautiful, which is what I wanted anyways. I knew Tom was going to kill me for spending that much on a dress without shopping around.

I was right Tom was a little bit mad!

On a different day, I needed to run to the distribution center to pick up some nursing garment tops. While I was there I found they had a blessing dress for $28.00. I bought it to help make my wonderful husband happy. I would take back the other dress.

A few days later I went to take it back. Come to find out they don't do refunds only in store credit or exchanges. I could not believe it! I told them I was from Texas so that wouldn't help me. They wouldn't budge!

In the end I kept the $75.00 dress and took back the $28.00 dress. I guess I need to find these things out before hand. Live and learn!

There's No Place Like Home

Our flight home January 5th was crazy!

We got to the Salt Lake airport with a little time to spare and we needed it! First just trying to get us, two kids, all of our carry on stuff, a car seat and a stroller through security was a joke and yet I was not laughing. As we were going through security one of the airport security asked to look in one of our bags because there was a lot of liquid inside. As we were packing the night before we completely forgot about the whole liquid rule because we packed all of our toiletry items in our carry on! So, to make it easier and so that they wouldn't have to throw out all of my new shampoo and conditioner that was over 3 oz. Tom decided to go back out and check it.

I'm already so stressed by this time that I am freaking out thinking we were going to miss our flight. As I was trying to get the kids situated again, by myself, I get a call from Tom telling me he forgot his wallet with the money in it and needed to pay since it was over our limit of free check on. Ahhh... there was no way I could get the kids and all of our crap by myself to meet him and I couldn't leave it all either so...Tom came back through security, grabbed his wallet and thankfully the curb check guy that Tom was checking the suitcase in with met him so Tom wouldn't have to go out again. Luckily we noticed our flight had been delayed by a half hour so we grabbed our kids and stuff and ran for the gate. We would have missed our flight had it not been delayed.

We got in about an hour later than we were supposed to on our lay over and there we found the connecting flight had been delayed 2 hrs. It was already getting late so we were all tired and cranky. The lack of sleep and food will do that so we grabbed some gross airport food and tried to be patient for the next flight.

Finally we made it into Houston around 12:30 a.m.! The moment we got off the plain it was such a relief and the warm air was very welcoming. When we got out side, where our good friend Mana was waiting with the car to pick us up, we took off our coats. It was so wonderful not to be freezing. I love this Houston weather! I don't miss the cold or the snow! But back to my story, the whole drive home I just kept saying how nice and warm it was. When we got home I mentioned a few more times how warm it was so I go and look at our thermostat and it reads 61 degrees. HA! I would normally be freezing at 61 degrees but coming from a place where it was in the single digits 61 degrees was warm. I just had to laugh.

We climbed into our own bed that night and it was AWESOME!

Stalling!!

Well, I am right now in the process of getting all of our vacation pictures together so I can blog them. Until then I figured I could up date you on what has been happening since we got home.

Avery had her two month well check-up, and from what the doctor say's Avery is advanced for her age but I think she was just saying that to make up for the fact that she kept calling Avery a boy, until I corrected her. This obviously wasn't the normal doctor we see. To give her credit, Avery did only have her diaper on!

She weighs a whopping 14 lbs. and is in the 95th percentile. At least she makes up for it in height at 24 in. She is our big girl! But that is ok because she is still the cutest baby ever!

It is funny how opposite her and Cole are. Cole has always been a little guy. He never got that chunky, but they both have those adorable, squeezable cheeks.

You will see from this clip
that Avery has become quite the talker
and can hold her attention to one object for a while as well.

Well, I guess that is pretty much all that has happened since being home. Exciting life huh!

Oh, I can tell you, my mom is going to be mortified, but we are still not unpacked! I really don't like to unpack. I'll get around to it eventually! Love you mom!!

COMING SOON TO A BLOG NEAR YOU

THE BOOTH FAMILY GRAND HOLIDAY ADVENTURE!

Rated G for everyone

You won't want to miss this #1 blog post of 2008/09
It will keep you on the edge of your seat!
Tom & Dayna give it two thumbs up

Merry Christmas! Love the Booth Family!

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