Gideon turned 1!!! Christmas Break

I love this happy boy!  Sweet Caleb

Gideon loves playing with Daddy

We made yummy peanut butter blossom cookies

Even when he doesn't feel good, he has his happy, joyful moments

I moved the big screen tv into my bedroom, and replace it with all of our nativity scenes to help us focus on Christ and the reason for the Christmas season.  I think it helped our family focus on what was important, we also had our manger basket, where we would write down what we did to serve each other and others and put it in the manger to fill up before Christmas.  

I went on a date with Caleb to the Cracker Barrel, he loved it!  He even shared his giant cup of hot chocolate with me

Samuel singing at his choir program at school

Samuel was a very good singer in his program, and I could hear his beautiful voice, and when he saw Gideon watching him from the audience, he smiled a big cheesy smile!

Gideon enjoyed eating the pieces of his birthday cake that were stuck to the pan

Gideon loved his birthday cake and wanted to grab his duck candle

Gideon's a little confused by his birthday song and cake, but enjoyed the attention.  He did grab the cake initially with his hand, but once he got frosting all over his fingers he didn't want it any more.  Austin made this banana chocolate chip cake for him with peanut butter frosting, it was delicious.  She was a little sad that he wouldn't eat it, but everyone else enjoyed it. 

Malachi loved visiting with Santa at Travis' Chaplain Christmas party, and getting candy canes and a book

Caleb and Malachi loved helping me make turkish delight for the first time,.  I think they mostly liked all the powdered sugar!

Austin is a great helper dipping the chocolates.  As you can see she got a lot on her hand, so save for later

Malachi loved visiting with Santa at the Branch Christmas Party

Austin's favorite things at activities, is to hold babies!!!  She is going to be an amazing mother someday!

Gideon loved sitting on Santa's lap at the Church Christmas Party!  

Caleb loved sitting on Santa's lap at the North pole party on post.  Everytime he saw Santa he asked for a "waterproof, underwater, remote control submarine  with water proof batteries".  

Samuel enjoyed seeing Santa too

Once again, Malachi's favorite part of seeing Santa is the candy cane!

Gideon and Betsy saw Santa

Austin sat on Santa's lap too!

Even Joseph had to sit on Santa's lap!

The whole family with Santa Claus at the North Pole party on post.  This was a great party for all the kids and everything was free.  We were able to go since Samuel is in EFMP for his Autism.  

Malachi and Caleb on the polar express

Isn't Malachi a cute little reindeer?

Daddy and Gideon are Reindeer Too!

Caleb wants to be a reindeer too!

They even talked me into being a reindeer

Betsy was a sweet big sister, and helped Gideon sled a little in the snow.  

Gideon loved the cold for about 5 minutes

Caleb loved playing in the snow

Samuel loved sledding down the dead end hill by our house.

Apparently Daddy thinks Gideon needs a lot of water!

Gideon loved poking and laughing at Malachi when he found him asleep

We made lots of yummy treats and went Christmas Caroling

Gideon loves that Daddy is home for Christmas break!  In these next few pictures, you can see how much fun they had interacting with each other!

Christmas morning, we had to be at the church by 9:30am, so everyone had to be all ready for church before we could open presents.  Caleb is so happy to get two bags of his favorite chips *sun chips

Austin loves her new sweater/coat, it is so soft!

Gideon was placed in his high chair and the presents were placed on his tray for him to open.  

Malachi is happy about his video game

Betsy loves her gigantic candy cane from Austin

Caleb is happy about his new dinosaur pajamas

Daddy loves his new steam cleaner

Samuel loves his new nerf ball guns

Joseph is happy he has new books to read

Austin received new snow boots!

Betsy loves that she got a new game to play!

Austin received a picture of the temple to hang up in her room

Betsy loves her new hoodie!

Samuel got new toys!

Austin received new socks

Betsy got a revovling cake plate, to practice her cake making and decorating skills

Caleb loves his new remote control car

Betsy loves her new movies

Samuel loves his new Christmas presents!

Austin loves her new Christmas presents

Gideon loves the empty tv space

Such a funny kid!

Daddy, Malachi, and Gideon love their new trike/stroller

Malachi likes that he can ride too!

Gideon is playing with his stuffed puppy, right before going into surgery to have tubes put in his tiny ears.  

Austin loves her Gideon

December is always a busy month, with Christmas preparations.  This year we've added Gideon's birthday to the mix, it was pretty easy, since we didn't have to do much, but Gideon loved opening his presents and being sung happy birthday to.  He wasn't too excited about the cake and ice cream since he is a funny guy about food, and doesn't really like to eat much.  He is walking really good now, and loves to clap and grin and stick his tongue out!  He is mostly a very happy, and joyful baby.  I can't believe my baby is 1!  He climbed out of his bed one night, and fell to the floor, he didn't fuss too much, so he must have landed well, but I had Travis immediately lower the crib to it's lowest setting (at 2am in the morning)  so it wouldn't happen again.  He is quite the climber, he climbs up the chairs in the kitchen and onto the table.  Our baby gate at the top of the stairs broke, so he now climbs up and down the stairs whenever he wants to as well.  He had more ear infections so I purchased ear oil and kept putting those in his ear to help, and it worked!  No more antibiotics, he has had too much.  Anyway he had surgery on the 28th to help his ears drain fluid properly, since they were full of fluid and always getting infected.  We stayed up with him until midnight the night before and I fed him just before we put him to sleep, so that he would sleep all night, and not need to eat until after the surgery.  He was fine and happy and playful at the hospital before they took him back, to put him to sleep.  He was very sad and fussy after the surgery (it only took about 10 minutes) and for the rest of the day, but then was much happier.  Although now he has croup again, it isn't as bad as last time, but I still need to give him breathing treatments.  I also think Gideon is allergic to dairy, after he turned 1, we started giving him dairy and he got horrible diarrhea and a nasty rash, so we have stopped giving him dairy and it went away.  When I take him to the Dr. for his 1 year check up, I will talk to them about having him tested.

Let's see now, for the rest of December, Travis was in the field until just before Gideon's birthday.  I had my piano recital, and it went pretty well, except Samuel was in a crazy mood, and he refused to play the piano, and threw a big temper tantrum.  I enjoyed hearing my students play, including Betsy.  We spent a lot of time in December baking cookies, and making chocolate and treats.  Most of the time, the kids would help me.  Caleb and Malachi loved helping with the turkish delight, and the girls loved to dip the candies in chocolate.  Caleb and Malachi would usually throw the candy centers into the chocolate and the girls and I would dip it.  Although I will say, that by the time I got to the last few chocolates I was going to make, it was getting a little messy and I was so tired of it, and rolled them into a ball and threw it into the remaining chocolate, to make one big messy truffle.  The kids got to eat that one, so they were happy.  This year we mailed 13 packages to family in honor of my Grandma Eldredge who passed away, and who I gained my love for chocolate making from.  We made Carmels, peanut butter balls, peppermint patties, orange creams, strawberry creams, blueberry creams, a few oreo truffles, peppermint bark, and turkish delight.  Then for Christmas Caroling we made 20 plates up, with peanut butter blossoms, peanut butter fudgy buttons, sugar cookies, oreo cookies, red velvet whoopie pies, and andes mint cookies, and the chocolates.  We only made it to six or seven houses Christmas caroling before it got too late, but we gave the rest out at church on Christmas day.  We also went to four Christmas parties this year.  One for all of the chaplains, we had a potluck dinner with lots of yummy food, and the kids got to do crafts, play with balloons, and see Santa and get a book and candy cane from him.  The next one was for Travis' troop, they were the same night, so by the time we got there is was mostly finished, but the kids still got to do a few crafts and play around before we left.  The next party was the church Christmas party, there was a musical program put on by a family in our ward, with costumes and everything.  They did a good job, but it was pretty hard to keep the kids quiet during the performance part, and both Malachi and Gideon had disgusting poopy diapers that needed changing and they were both difficult.  It was a dessert potluck after the performance, and the kids had fun eating treats, and then got to visit Santa and get candy canes.  The last one we got to go to was a North Pole workshop party.  We were able to go, since Samuel is in EFMP due to his Autism.  It was really nice, the kids all got to see Santa, and each got a present from him (around $20 gift) there was cookie decorating, games, prizes, face painting, pop corn, hot chocolate and music.  It was a lot of fun, and the kids got a ton of stuff!  Our family even won a raffle and got a free xbox 360 infinity game.  For the whole month of December we did secret service for each other, by drawing names each week for a person in our family, and then after we did our service, we would write it down and put it in our basket manger to fill up for Christmas. I spent a lot of time preparing and planning the music for Christmas Day, and practicing with different groups who I asked to sing or play instruments.  We also did the 12 days of Christmas for a family in our branch whose 8 year old daughter died.  The kids enjoyed that, and we hope it made a difference for their family.  We also took the kids out on several dates, that were enjoyable and fun.   Christmas Eve we invited 3 families over for dinner who's husband's were deployed or were single.  It was a delicious feast and the kids had fun. After dinner Travis read the Spanglish version of "Twas the night before Christmas" then after everyone left we left everyone open up a present, blankets.  Then the kids went to bed, and Travis left to deliver hot chocolate and cookies to soldiers who had to work, and the girls helped me put all the presents under the tree, then they went to bed, and put all the stockings together.  In the morning, Gideon, Malachi, and Caleb were up pretty early, so we told everyone to get ready for church and then we would open presents.  Malachi managed to escape once and opened up one of his presents, but then we got him back to a bedroom..  Everyone came upstairs and we started opening presents.  Everyone liked all of their presents, and we had a fun time opening presents, when we were done it was time to go to church.  We got to the church, and practiced with a few members of the choir.  I started playing prelude music on the organ, with both Malachi and Caleb on either side of me, because Travis was trying to find someone who could watch all the little boys during Sacrament, since Betsy, Austin, Joseph, Travis, and I were all in the program.  Travis got a family to watch our boys, but unfortunately only Gideon would stay with them, so Malachi and Caleb ended up being with us the whole time up on the stand.  The meeting went well, except that whether I was playing the organ, piano, or singing, both Malachi and Caleb had to be right with me, climbing all over me and making it difficult to play.  The worst part was when Malachi would grab my hands and pull them off the piano.  I played as well as I could, mostly just missing a few notes hear and there.  When Travis and I sang out duet, the cold I was fighting made it hard to sing very loud, but it went all right, the choir numbers went fine, as well as the musical numbers I accompanied.  At the end of the program, one of the choir members said I deserved a medal for being able to play all that music with kids climbing all over me, and another one said he wanted to pull out his phone and video tape me, so that I could show it to my kids when they were older to show them what I went through.  Over all the Christmas program went well, after wards we gave out the rest of our plates of cookies from caroling and went home to have our cinnamon roll tree brunch, and play with Christmas presents the rest of the day.
The next week was filled with going to the temple, Gideon's surgery, and cleaning the house and putting away Christmas decorations.  We had some friends over for dinner a couple of times, and New Year's Eve we played games until 10pm and then went to bed.  I hurt my back twice over Christmas break, usually taking a few days before it felt better again.  The kids went back to school, and Travis went back to work.  Joseph has been home with me, Malachi and Gideon, because we are trying to home school him this semester.  He has been failing all of his classes, so we are going to try this, and see if it will work.  He is doing online school through K12 and will start classes tomorrow.  He still has early morning seminary though.  It was hard for everyone to start getting up at 5am again, but we are trying really hard to get everyone to bed sooner.  A bad sore throat virus has been going through the family, but hopefully we will all get healthy again soon.