Christmas 2012

Wow. I'm posting about Christmas when we are almost halfway through January. It's been a little bit crazy, especially having our newborn little Garrett in our family now. I've been recovering and resting from labor and delivery and we are adjusting to life with two kids! We love Kimbri and Garrett so so so much! I'll post more about Garrett's birth on this blog a little later but I want to quickly write about our Christmas for the year 2012! 

So this is our Christmas tree with the gifts underneath! Rick and I decided that we could spend $20 dollars on each other. Since we each needed some things we weren't very secretive. For example, Rick's jeans have holes in them so he needed some more pants. We went Christmas shopping and he picked out and tried on the pair of pants sitting under the Christmas tree in this picture. He also needed some socks so we got those for him too. I needed some new face lotion and then I also picked out a pair of warm and very comfortable sweat pants. I had been wanting something warm and comfortable to go and come home from the hospital in when having baby Garrett. For Kimbri, she got some books and a two babies with a baby doll bed. The books we were able to get for free since I hosted a book show a while back. The baby doll bed has been around for years! My grandpa Haycock made the bed for me a long time ago and my grandma Haycock made a little padding for a mattress for the baby dolls along with some pillows and blankets. They've been stored away for years, since I was little, so I washed the blankets and pillows and got out my twin baby dolls that I had from when I was younger and we gave them to Kimbri. We also got her a little pink and gray bracelet for $1. I know I've mentioned before in a previous post how much Kimbri loves "pretties" or in other words, bracelets and necklaces. She always likes to wear my bracelets so we got her one for herself that is her size. 

She loves her babies!

After having Kimbri opening and seeing her gifts and playing with her for a while, we loaded up and headed down to Spanish fork to spend Christmas morning with my family. I wish I would've written about the day sooner so that I could remember more details but it's been a while now so I don't remember as much. 

Kimbri LOVED picking up the wrapping paper from when anyone opened a present. My mom had a big trash sack and Kimbri would go and pick up each tiny bit of wrapping paper and throw it away. It was pretty funny and very entertaining not only for her but for everyone watching. Haha!

Kimbri loving the big pillow my mom got.

I don't have many pictures from Christmas day :( Bummer! But Donna and Jason, my aunt and uncle from Texas, and their two kids Micah and Maddye were here in Utah for Christmas this year! Also here for Christmas was Dale and Delicia and their three girls, Mckenzie, Mallory, and Katie, also from Texas. It was sooo fun to see them all!!! We didn't get to go to Louisiana for Thanksgiving for the big reunion with all my mom's siblings and parents so it was extra fun to see them.

My uncle Jason reading Christmas books to Kimbri.

We weren't able to get really fancy or that nice of gifts for other people because of our limited amount of money but we tried to get things people might need and enjoy at the same time. We got Rick's parents a cookie scooper. Rick said that his family didn't have one. It's not really a necessity to have a cookie scooper but it's kind of fun and makes scooping cookie dough a little bit easier and faster! Hopefully they enjoy it :) We decided to get my parents a new potato peeler. They have had an old metal one since I can remember that is getting pretty bent and beat up. Someone had given us a nicer potato peeler for our wedding and I love it so hopefully they enjoy their new one too! And I think I already talked about the sibling gift exchange in my Christmas Eve post...but if not, I'll quickly mention it. We had Nolan's name this year and got him a gift card to Red Robin so he and Brooke could go out on a free date. And on Rick's side of the family we had Levi's name and we got him a part that goes to his ukelele. 

Each of our parent's went over the top in giving us a Christmas this year. We feel so grateful to them and feel so blessed to have such amazing parents! Rick's parents got us pass of all passes! We are soooo excited! That gives us tons of free dates. And we'll get to spend a few weeks at Seven Peaks this next summer before moving to Arizona! They also gave us some money for Christmas. Thanks to both Mike and Sundee for so much generosity. I don't think they will realize how much it means to us right now in our lives! 

My parents got us a Chicco double stroller! I was totally shocked! It's gray and black and the car seat we have will snap into either the front or back seat of the stroller. I am sooooo excited. I can't even express how amazed I am. I've been wanting a double stroller for quite a while now, especially with a new baby! But we just new that it wasn't something we could afford right now. I've just been thinking about how when we will be living in Arizona and me being at home with two kids and how hard it would be to go anywhere. Kimbri and Garrett are just so close in age that they are both young enough to need to ride in a stroller. Thanks mom and dad! I can't believe it and I'm so excited!  They also renewed our Sam's club membership that came with a gift card which we are also so grateful for! They even looked up to make sure there was a Sam's Club in the area we will be living at in Arizona. Also they gave us a Walmart gift card and some extra cash. 

Again, I'm not sure if our parents will realize how big of a blessing their generosity has been for us. With the money we received from both of our parents we were able to buy food and even replace some of the food storage we had eaten. Rick and I often talk about how we want to be like our parents when Rick is done with school and we actually have money. We want to help others out like so many people have done for us. We want to be able to leave an extra big tip for someone who might really need it or secretly buy groceries for a family in need, like someone "secretly" did for us. I say "secretly" because we found out who actually did it and we can't even begin to express how grateful we are for the fruit, vegetables, meat and food money they left on our front porch.

During this Christmas season people have been so generous to us and as I have sat here and typed this out I'm overcome with tears and just hope that we can someday pay it forward to others who are in need. We love our family and friends and are so grateful to every one of them in our lives! 

Merry Christmas!