My dad got Miles this hilarious hat that he looks just like a Viking in, but of course Miles wouldn't look at the camera long enough for me to get a good shot. I sadly don't even have a picture of Miles with Santa this year. We did take him for the annual visit, but the people in front of us had an infant who screamed the whole time he sat on Santa's lap and a three year old who wouldn't get remotely close to the guy, so of course when it was Miles's turn to go up he wanted nothing to do with it. He cried and clung to me to the extent that I just would have felt cruel forcing him out of my arms into Santa's lap, so the whole event was a bust. We will try again next year I suppose.
Although I don't have pictures to prove it, we did have a very nice Christmas with my family. We got to see my dad and Tina for a couple of days the week before Christmas and then headed to Elko to be with the whole family for the actual holiday. We even got to Skype with Amy on Christmas eve, though I didn't get to talk much because of Miles running interference. His enthusiasm for Christmas morning was quite contagious, though. He was really excited with each present he opened, to the point that we sometimes had to remind him that he still had more to open. We also were blessed to have a beautiful white Christmas with probably over a foot of snow in Elko, which was quite nice until we had to drive back to Salt Lake the following day in round two of the snow storm.
In spite of how nice it was to see family, I have to admit I was quite relieved to get home after being gone a few days. Miles just never sleeps well when we travel, which means Benjamin and I don't sleep well. In fact, poor Benjamin was banished from our bed to an air mattress because the only way I could get Miles to sleep through the night (sort of) was to have him in bed with me, and there just isn't room for all of us in one bed. I remember being surprised a couple of years ago when a friend from church who has four kids told me that they never travel for the holidays any more because it is just too much stress and work. I am starting to see more and more why she would say that...I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that we will have space enough in our house one day to just invite everyone to our house : )
Anyway, it's hard to believe Christmas was already three weeks ago. By New Years Eve my dad had left back to Afghanistan, so my mom came over and spent the holiday with us. As a Christmas gift Benjamin got me a spa day package which I went and enjoyed while my mom was available to watch Miles and Benjamin worked (the spa package was heavenly by the way--I highly recommend any husband giving something along those lines to his wife!). Then that evening we went to dinner with my mom and afterward Benjamin and I snuck away to watch Les Miserables and even managed to stay awake until midnight, though it was only because our movie started at 9pm and was long--otherwise I'm sure we would have been asleep at our usual 10:30. We are boring oldly-weds afterall. Proof: I forgot to mention that we celebrated our 6 year wedding anniversary on December 28th. I have to say I would not recommend getting married the week of Christmas to anyone, whether you are in college or not, because you will inevitably end up thinking that dinner and a trip to Ikea is an adequate celebration to mark another year of marriage, which I really think is an under-celebration for what is really a grand and wonderful annual milestone. I sometimes seriously wish we would have said "School be damned!" and just picked a week in November or January that would have not been shared with two of the biggest holidays of the year plus Benjamin's birthday, which is sadly the 30th and also is rarely marked by more than an ice-cream cake. I didn't even remember to sing him happy birthday this year when I brought out the ice-cream cake--how pathetic is that?
So there it is--we survived and enjoyed another holiday/birthday/anniversary season. The past two weeks have been uneventful in a nice sort of way. We have had TONS of snow and cold--more than I can ever remember living in Utah. It was all of 3 degrees out yesterday morning at 10am when Miles and I left the house. I think Benjamin is sick of the snow because he is on head snow shoveling duty for our driveway, plus his truck's 4-wheel drive quit working in the last snow storm, but I love it. The snow is so beautiful, and since I am uncomfortably huge and slothful these days I am not bothered by staying inside and enjoying the view from our front window. I still try to get Miles out of the house at least once a day to burn off some energy, and I even managed to get the two of us out sledding a few days ago. I'm sure we looked hilarious, between me being ridiculously huge and dragging him around on the sled and him intermittently crying when he got snow down his neck or when he was not satisfied with how high up the hill I would let him go down. He was absolutely furious when we left, though, in spite of his intermittent tearfulness while sledding. His little cheeks were turning from pink to purple after about an hour outside and he had snot dripping down directly from his nose to his mouth when I said I think we better go before either of us require medical attention (it was actively snowing and probably about 18 degrees out). He didn't want to leave though and cried and howled and made sure that before we left everyone in the park thought I was being a terrible mother.
Oh, how I adore his feisty little spirit! I am so glad that this year we will be blessed to add another little boy to our family. Hooray for 2013--I think it's going to be a great year!
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