I'm alive!

Yes! I'm alive! I have a lot to catch up on, so here we go! On Christmas Eve at around 4:30 we found out that our Christmas Eve plans were cancelled... We were going to go to a friend's house to have dinner, but she had a migraine, so we couldn't go over. We were really bummed, but luckily I had some chicken that I cooked into "pseudo" Chicken Kiev. I couldn't do the insides of the chicken kiev, but I could do the batter, and I had cream of mushroom soup instead of making the real mushroom sauce... So it was nice to have dinner together alone, even though it wasn't what we had planned. Then we had our own Christmas program. We sang Christmas songs, I read a Christmas story, Travis sang a song, we both sang a song when my parents called during their program. We read "The Night Before Christmas" (which Travis gave me a nice copy of). And we read and acted out the nativity. I was Joseph, Elora was Mary, Max was a shepard, and Travis was a wise man.

Don't you think that's the cutest Mary you ever did see?

Then after our program, we started the tradition of opening up new pajamas on Christmas Eve. The kids absolutely loved them!

On Christmas morning, I asked Elora if we should go downstairs to see what Santa brought. She thought Santa Claus was going to come on Christmas, like that she was going to SEE Santa Claus. So I had to explain to her that he brought presents, filled our stockings, and ate the cookies we left out, but that he couldn't stay to see us. After we saw what Santa brought, and ate breakfast, we drove up to my brothers house in Tremonton. It was snowing, but the roads were fine in Ogden. As we got further north, they got worse, and we couldn't even see the road for the exit to Scott's house. There were no tracks or anything! Luckily we made it safe, and it snowed ALL DAY LONG! So we surely got a white Christmas! We opened the rest of our gifts at Scott's house along with my other brother and his family. We played games, played Scott's new Wii (I got a workout!) And had a very nice Christmas dinner! We had a lot of fun! We stayed the night because it was still snowing that night.

Here's me after I opened the gift from my Mom that she made! I absolutely love it! I love advent calendars, and this one is awesome! She cut it all out and quilted it all together, and made two others as well. Did I say that my Mom is AWESOME?!

Happy early birthday to me. I hardly ever get new clothes, and my Mom put some in the box as filler for my birthday because they were cheap. (My birthday is in March...)

Elora opening her present from Joe and Kimberly...

It's flowers for her hair!

So pretty!

I made Travis a big King sized quilt. My awesome visiting teacher brought over her quilting frames one day while Travis was at work and school. And I did the borders on Christmas Eve while Travis was at work. It was my first time doing quilt borders, I think I did a good job, if I do say so myself... :)

Alisa in her new hat...

The day after Christmas, we drove down to Ogden, unpacked our Christmas stuff, and then packed up to go to St. George. Then we drove down to St. George, said hello to the family, and then went to our annual friends Christmas party with our high school friends. We had a lot of fun. Then the next day, we got to play a little basketball and got to see my aunt and uncle and cousins who came down from Washington State who I don't get to see very often.

(Here's Max at Great Grandma's house, he likes to hang onto Travis' loop on his pants for some reason...)

The next week was a blur of having way too much fun, and Travis went back to Ogden to work for three days, and we had an awesome New Years playing games, and playing the Wii :) And in the middle of all that fun, on New Years day, I got sick, and could hardly get out of bed the whole day... What a way to start out the new year, right? Hopefully that's not a sign of things to come this year... The next day, I was feeling much better, and we had our annual adults only (late) Christmas dinner. We were in charge of it, so I guess they had to wait for us to get down to St. George to have it. The next day, Saturday the 3rd, Nick, our oldest nephew got baptized. (Weird that I have a nephew old enough to get baptized...)

Then on Sunday the 4th, we enjoyed church, and hanging out and relaxing. Here's Elora after she took the comics away from uncle Chad when Daddy was wrestling him...

Then she let him read them, as long as she could cuddle too...

Then that evening, we had a family home evening with everyone in the family to also celebrate all the birthdays in the month. So Happy Birthday Mom, Dallas, and Travis.

Then we drove home, aww good to be home...

Here's a picture thrown in that Elora took, I just thought it was a funny picture that she took...

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Memories

I've been missing my parents lately... They always made Christmas so special. This is the second Christmas in a row that I won't see my parents for Christmas. I was with them for Christmas for 24 years, and then all of a sudden I wasn't last year and this. Some of my favorite parts about Christmas with my family is the homemade cooking and baking by my Mom. She always made all kinds of yummy treats, and for the past few years or so, Chicken kiev on Christmas Eve -it's to die for! We had a nice sit-down fancy meal with a nice table cloth, candles, delicious food, and sparkling cidar...

Then after dinner, we all gathered together in the living room for our Annual Seegmiller Family Christmas program. Sometimes we even had a program printed out. Everyone had to participate, either by sharing a talent, singing, playing an instrument, reading a poem or story, or whatever! Inbetween each performance, we'd sing a Christmas song all together. Then, at the end we would read the nativity, (When we were younger, we would act it out) and then Dad would always read "The Night Before Christmas" from a book that was old and falling apart. But we had to read it from that book because it was tradition, and because the Santa on the front cover had a fuzzy red coat that we had to touch and feel every time. Then we would feast again on all the treats my mom made. Our favorites were, fudge and homemade Reese's peanut butter bars. But there was also toffee, cheese ball and crackers, shortbread cookies, sometimes peanut brittle... It just depended on how much time Mom had and how up to it she felt. But fudge and peanut butter bars were a must! Then I would usually be the one to leave cookies and milk for Santa, and also leave a letter for Santa. When I got older, and didn't write a letter to Santa, my Mom told me I had to write one, it was tradition, and she would miss it. So I think I've written one every year. I sent one last year that made my Mom cry, and I just e-mailed this years Santa letter. But after I left the cookies and letter, we'd go to bed with excitement in the air. When we were younger, I could hardly sleep!

Then the next morning, usually at 6:00am, (but later as we got older...) we'd go down to see what Santa brought us, and of course had to make sure our parents were up to see our reactions. We'd admire our one gift from Santa and inspect our stockings, then we had to wait... Wait until Mom made breakfast, usually something special, or maybe not so special, but it was always special to sit down all together for breakfast on Christmas morning. Then after breakfast, usually it was 9 or 10 we'd start opening presents! We had a designated "Santa" to pass out the gifts one at a time. Then we would open them one at a time, and have a grand ol' time until there were no more gifts under the tree. Usually that was about 12-1 o'clock. Then we'd have a big pile of wrapping paper etc, that we'd sometimes jump into, and then clean up. Then we'd take our pile of new gifts into our rooms and play around with them, and try on our new clothes, and Dad would usually put on one of his new CD's and blare it across the whole house. We just hung out the rest of the day and play games or whatever. Then we'd have another nice meal... I know... my Mom's amazing, isn't she? Then usually we'd watch one of our new movies that we got that night.

So that has been my Christmas... and I absolutely love it! I want to carry on pretty much all of these traditions in our own family. This year will be a little different because we are having Christmas Eve dinner with our good friends, the Garcias. Which I said we had to have a little program over there where we at least act out the nativity, which will be fun because we'll have a few kids to act out the parts. This year we are starting the tradition of getting new pajamas on Christmas Eve. Christmas morning will be fun, especially since Elora is grasping the concept of Santa Claus... And if you ask her what Santa Claus is bringing her, she says an "Orange, fast car." Have no idea where she came up with that, but hey, if that's what she wants, I'm sure Santa can handle that. Then after we have our special breakfast all together, and open our gifts. We're going to my brother's house to hang out and have Christmas dinner. He just got a Wii for his birthday, so this should be fun.

Our Christmas will be good and fun, especially being together with family. Because I think that's the point and the fun of it all, is enjoying time together as a family, and remembering our blessings and the birth of our Savior our brother. We are all a part of His family, and I'm so thankful for that. I miss my parents, but I know that I am blessed to be part of Heavenly Father's family. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas as well!

Twirling...

Well, our little princess has been twirling... And with twirling comes injuries sometimes... Elora was twirling in the living room, (She loves dancing around all the time) and she fell and hit her chin on the coffee table. So we spent last night taking her to get stitches, she got 4 or 5 stitches, so not too bad. I was amazed at how well she did! After she fell she only cried for a little bit, and then she held the ice on really good. When they put the stitches in, she held really still and was very brave. She wouldn't say a word to the doctor or nurse though. She gets really shy around new people. But anyway, her spirits are high, and I even caught her twirling again today... And she will have a scar just like Mommy on her chin.

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had Thanksgiving with Travis' side of the family. What a fun time we had, but it's good to be home now. Here's Max smiling at uncle Chad...

We had 28 people for Thanksgiving dinner, so we just moved the couches out of the living room, and moved three tables in.

Jason enjoying his jello...

Later, we pushed two of the tables together for a big game of Mormon bridge...

And of course we had to balance the babies again. Jaci is getting so big...

On Friday, we put the Christmas decorations up. I think the boys (Travis, Chad, and Jason) just like to have an excuse to get on the roof...

Silly Chad...

Travis and Elora in the famous tree, it wasn't long ago that me and Travis were in the same tree...

Trevor giving Jaci hugs...

Ethan and Ella got new hats...

On Sunday we got to go to new baby Mya's baby blessing and then luncheon. Afterwards we went to go see Tyson's grave stone that just got put in...

Then, on Sunday night before we left, we had a cousin party for all the little kids. Complete with storytime,

(Uncle Dustin told a good story about a snowman) songtime,

snacktime (Max was all business),

(Emma enjoying her snack),

games (pin the nose on the Santa Claus),

And a gift exchange.

Here's all 12 grandkids! (Oldest to youngest is: Nick, Gavin, Brandon, Elora, Trevor, Ethan, Tanner, Max, Emma, Jaci, Ella, and Mya)

What a fun Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving ABC's

I thought this one was cool, brought me back to my seminary days when Bro McArthur had us write down all the things we're thankful for, remember that Katie?

Autumn
Bed
Cookies
Dinners
Elora
Family
Gospel
Home
Ice cream
Jesus Christ
Kitchen -though it's not that big, it works
Little people -the ones I live with, they're so cute :)
Max
Nose -very thankful I can smell and taste the good things of the world
Optical devices that help me see better
Power -As in the kind that powers our house
Quilts
Reading
Sky -I like painting skies
Travis
Universe
V-6 engine -so I can travel down to see family in a week and a half!!
Work -so Travis can earn money for his family
Xacto knives -a must have tool for the artist
Yo-yo's -as in the crazy people that I grew up with and love so much
Zuchini bread -mmmmm

So I tag anyone who wants to join in, and list some of their many blessings that they are thankful for!

Halloween...

For Halloween, I completely made Travis' costume, and Max's costume, bought Elora's, and made up a DI dress for my costume. We went to two Trunk or Treats, a couple houses, and then had pizza and a movie at our friend's house, it was a lot of fun!

Travis was Sully...

Elora was Boo...

Max was Mike Wazowski...

I was Celia...

And Bobby the bear was Mike's bear that Boo carried around...

The whole family...

Me with my "other Mom" here in Ogden, Carmella...

Letting my hair out at the end of the day...

Couldn't resist a few pictures from this morning...