the holidazzle

it is my 200th post!

and what a perfect number and post to go into the new year.

Christmas went amazingly well.

this was the first time in FOUR years i got to spend Christmas with my family and i cherished every moment...and every bite.  i've eaten sooooo much i'm joining the millions of americans in their quest to lose weight in the new year, only to fall off the bandwagon end of january.

having my family stay with us meant having all our presents for each other underneath our tree.  and the presents started enveloping the tree.

this is my obnoxious and so freakin excited face when i unwrapped my lord of the rings extended edition trilogy on blu-ray from brett.  it was seriously all i asked for.

and miss erin got some books for her upcoming mission in april!  she'll be going to the philippines quezon city north mission and we're all so proud of her.  we never thought that one of us girls would be going on a mission, let alone going to the philippines, the land of our ancestors.

everton got some sweet toys this Christmas.

and after the unwrapping of presents we devoured my dad's Christmas morning tradition cinnamon rolls, went into diabetic comas, then ate again for our Christmas dinner, went to see the hobbit again (it being my third time,) then came back home and watched White Christmas and gorged on 5 different pies to choose from.  it was truly a perfect day: family, presents, the hobbit, and food.

Christmas cuddlin

Christmas is a-comin and we've been a-cuddlin with the fam.  kyla, travis, and hazel drove up from cedar city, we picked up my sis erin from slc, and my mom and dad have been hanging out with us.  we have quite the packed house.  as traditions go for a lot of LDS families, we went to see the salt lake temple's Christmas lights at temple square.  our family favors the DC temple's lights but we're pretty lucky enough to live close to this temple soooo we're cool with that.  we also wanted to see if the babies gave a crap about the lights too. and i think they did.

my sweet niece, hazel, who'll throw the duck face when you ask her to smile.

sunday pics.  everton just can't believe Christmas is in a few days!  jk he probably just saw a dog or something.

the thrilled grandparents.

the caldwells and company wish you a super and safe Merry Christmas!!

p.s. everton is doing A-OK (thanks be to drugs) and just has a gollum cough due to his bronchitis woo hoo!

concerning hobbits, an ugly Christmas sweater partay, and sickness

brett and i hosted our first ugly Christmas sweater party!

we invited our dear friends, mitch and jenny and the brand spankin new newlyweds, adam and charlene.  well technically we're all still newlyweds because we haven't been married for more than 10 years (according to our bish back in rexburg.)  whatever it takes for me to feel like brett and i aren't the oldies of the group...

we had every intention of building gingerbread houses but we never got around to it.  we were having too much fun chatting and junking out.

everton being the grinch of the party. 

 and don't you love brett's sweater?  it makes me tickled seeing brett in other items of clothing other than a suit or gym shorts, especially if those other items of clothing have reindeer and fat snowmen on 'em.

mitch and jenny! 

 i think jenny's sweater won.  she borrowed it from their 90 yr old landords and it had bells and lights.  and her cute pregnant belly showed off that tacky Christmas tree with pride.

and adam and charlene!

they're really adorable.

the gang (yes brett is wearing shorts)

with these people living in utah, this state has become even more wonderful.

also, check out what i got at this month's Christmas white elephant bunco.  this may be useful in the future.

and after bunco i hurried on up to slc to catch the midnight premiere of The Hobbit in IMAX 3D!  i saw it with my sis erin and the movie was freakin sweet!  and they gave us these sick posters, which you better believe i'm hanging the gollum poster in everton's room.  jkjk i don't need him waking up any earlier due to nightmares.  i'm a nerd for the LOTR trilogy and now that they're creating The Hobbit trilogy, it gives me a lot to look forward to for the next 2 years!  peter jackson, just take my money.

our Christmas card, for once we sent out Christmas cards this year and we used cardstore.com.  they have amazing discounts!  just a little sumthin sumthin for ya.

my poor everton, we realized why he was being grinchy saturday night when he developed a fever the next day.  then come to find out at a sick visit to the doc on monday that he also had strep throat, bronchitis, and an ear infection (his first one.)  and i used to boast that everton hasn't had ear infections yet.  it was bound to happen.  geez everton when are you getting leprosy?  so my days right now are filled with loads of meds, waking up early, and some weeping and wailing going on.  some of that is coming from me.

farting around

hey hey hey blogger buddies.

not much has been goin on since charlene's fantastic wedding.

just fartin around watching mary poppins and the like.

gettin pumped for THE HOBBIT

studying up on the map of middle earth

just busy being plain awesome

but seriously just farting around, waiting for Christmas to come!