363 more days and counting.

Every year I'm amazed at how quickly Christmas day goes by- after all the hard work that is put into it! I shopped, wrapped, baked, cooked, cleaned, organized and decorated for hours upon hours, and it was over in 3 hours. But it was a magical, exciting and perfect 3 hours!

We kicked off by going out to dinner at Bucca di Beppo with Aaron's parents on Christmas Eve. They live in the Bay Area and drove down on Saturday to spend the week with us. After dinner we came back and opened up Christmas PJ's, set out snacks for the reindeer and Santa, read The Night Before Christmas and the kids opened up our family ornament for 2007 and then their Christmas book. This year they got Merry Christmas Curious George! We tucked them into bed at 8 pm and read them the Bible story out of Luke 2. We had to be really sneaky about keeping the "santa gifts" that were downstairs, hidden. Our upstairs hallway looks directly into our family room and we didn't want to have any accidents so Aaron secured their door with an alarm. It did the trick and we had no peekers!

The kids got up at a decent hour- 7am and they waited in bed with Aaron while I went downstairs to check to see if Santa had come. (aka- turn on lights, Christmas music, get out camera's etc.) Indeed he had come and the kids raced downstairs to see! The look on their little faces was the best part of the whole day- priceless! We played with Santa gifts for awhile and then had homemade cinnamon rolls and fruit for breakfast and then jumped into presents and stockings. It was all over by 10 am. We then hurried to get things straightened up, shower and head down to my parents house. Aaron's sister, her husband and their 3 kids met us there. We opened presents to/from my parents and had a most delicious dinner. We had about 40 people there- great g-parents, mine and Aaron's parents, aunts, uncles and cousins. It was a really great afternoon and we loved being with all our family. We finally got into the car to head home at about 8:00 and I think all the kids were asleep before we got on the freeway. Aaron's parents and sister and family came back with us and stayed the next 2 nights. They left this morning.


Waiting in bed- hurry up , Mom!
The boys big gifts from Santa.

Addie was a little in awe of everything- although she jumped right in and got the hang of it very quickly!

More Christmas craziness at Grammy and Grandpa's house.
Grammy (my mom) and Jake opening up MORE presents!
Addie with her favorite toy- a stroller for her baby.
As much as I love Christmas, I am relieved that it's over. It's so much fun and definitely my favorite time of the year- but truth be told, I also really enjoy putting everything away, cleaning up, playing with the kids and all their new toys that and looking forward to the New Year. I love the feel of the fresh start and the best part is that I also get to look forward to our new baby! Now that Christmas is over I am going to start getting ready for him and I'm so excited for that. It's crazy that the little guy will be here in less than 15 weeks! I know with 3 birthdays and lots of preparations for the baby, that day will be here before I know it. Next big event. . . the youth are coming over tomorrow night after the New Years Eve dance for their annual "waffle breakfast" at midnight. It's a little tradition Aaron started since he's been YM President. Better get cooking- again!

Bring it on.

The Edmonds household is ready for Christmas morning. . .bring it on!

The chimney has been cleaned for Santa's arrival.


The roof has been hosed down in preparation for the reindeer- so they don't slip on the dirt.


Santa's cookies have been baked and are waiting on the hearth, accompanied by carrots and lettuce for the reindeer and milk for Santa's cookies.


Christmas PJ's have been opened and the kids are all snug in their beds.

We're ready!

Merry Christmas everybody! Have a magical day!

What did you do today?

Lots of rain+2 little boys= an afternoon of fun!

Wow, my kids had so much fun playing in the mud today! Wondering what I did all afternoon? No need to wonder anymore, I spend the afternoon cleaning up muddy kids. Seriously, it took me almost the entire time. I'm usually always game for putting the kids in play clothes and letting them go to town, but I'm not exactly sure that today's adventures were worth all the work. It was such a mess!

No Where Else I'd Rather Be

This is kind of a random post (no pictures because the camera battery is dead), but it's something that's been on my mind. For me, it's hard to put these kind of thoughts into words. You know the kind- things that you think about a lot and are really important and meaningful to you, but then when you try to verbalize them- it just doesn't come out right?

It's just been such a busy time. There are so many places that I need to be, things that I need to do and people that I want to visit- but how do you fit it all in? Well, tonight my little Jake was SO tired. He had a busy day of off-roading with Dad and Tyler, birthday party, playing in the backyard and then we went out as a family for dinner at Johnny Carino's and then to Target. We let the kids pick out gifts for each other and for us. Jake was just miserable- tired and didn't feel good. So we came home and he was asleep in the car in about 3 minutes. I changed him and put him to bed and then laid down with him. As I was laying there the Christmas lights from the neighbors houses were coming in his window and I just thought about all the craziness that was going on outside of his bedroom window- the traffic, crowds at the mall, lines in the stores, etc. I realized that as much as I have to do, there really was no other place I'd rather be. . . in bed, snuggling my little baby, smelling "his" smell and feeling his sweet breath on my arm. I really could have laid there for a very long time- but the real world called me back and Aaron had to leave to chaperone a stake dance and the 2 other kids needed my attention.

For whatever reason, I really am thankful to have had that moment tonight. A couple days ago we had a really scary, traumatic experience at our home- it was a close call with one of the kids. I'm still not ready to talk about it- it really shook me up, but maybe that's why I was blessed with this epiphany. A little moment of peace and clarity, to help me remember what's really important during this crazy time of year.

Go Team Mitt!

I am not exactly what you would call a "politically active" person, but considering what's at stake with the upcoming presidential election, I decided it was time to do something. So I signed up on MittRomney.com and got involved as a volunteer. Tonight was our first volunteer activity- to tell you the truth I was kind of nervous. It was a phone bank, cold calling people and doing surveys. But I decided to go and have the experience. It was definitely out of my comfort zone, which made it a challenge for me!

I am really glad I went, I learned a lot and it felt good to do something that perhaps might (in some super small way) help out the Romney campaign. So it ended up being 3 hours and I made about 150 phone calls. Unfortunately, most people aren't super friendly, but I sure talked to a lot of interesting people. I even called some people on my list who were dead- oops! sorry! One poor old man told me all about his late wife who used to take care of the cat and although he hated it, he kept it around because he felt like she was watching. It was so sad and I wished I could've talked to him longer and kept him company. I was the only girl there (they were all middle aged business men) and at the end the guy who was hosting the event told me that I had made the most calls- yeah for the pregnant mom!

Hopefully you heard Mitt's speech this morning on religious freedom in America. If not, you can watch it here. Make time to watch it if you haven't yet because it's amazing and it has changed a lot of peoples thinking about his possibility as a Republican nominee. If this interests you at all, let me know. There are so many things that we can do to help Mitt win!

Football, Cosmo and BYU!

On Saturday afternoon we drove down to San Diego for the BYU/SDSU game. It was supposed to have been a few weeks ago, but because of the fires, it was rescheduled. It was really cold- but I loved the chilly weather and warm clothes! We drove down with our friends, the Jones', and met up with some other friends from our ward there. Our friends who moved away in June flew down for the game! It was so fun to see the Wildings and it made me realize how much I miss them. Our kids had a blast playing together. I got brave during the 4th quarter and took the boys all the way down to the field to try to get a picture with Cosmo the Cougar. We had to wait for almost 45 minutes- but we were determined and we got our picture! The kids were so excited to see Cosmo up close and slap him five. The Cougars won 48-27- so that made the night even better. We love BYU football- go Cougars!

Family picture, minus Addie- she's not really a football fan yet.
Patiently waiting for Cosmo to come our way. The boys were yelling for him the entire 45 minutes. I'm sure he came over to us, just to get my boys to shut-up!


Finally, we got the picture!

Aaron's sister, brother-in-law and 3 cute kids met us there. Jake had fun making his cousin, baby Paige, laugh. She thought he was hilarious!