Farewell to Cheryl

A bunch of us got together to saw goodbye to Cheryl. We met at Red Robin and ate and talked for several hours. Here are some pictures of some of us:

Of course on the way home, I had a little accident. Just before I turn onto my street, a dog ran out in front of my car. Even stomping on my brakes I was unable to avoid hitting him. Luckily (for him), he got up and walked away unhurt. Unfortunately (for me), I got a huge dent in my front bumper. What a bummer :(

Couch Pillows

I have been trying to find good pillows for my couch and I have had to take a lot of pillows back to stores. I think I have found the right ones. Tell me if you like them.

Christmas

Christmas Eve was spent at my house with what is becoming a tradition -- an appetizer dinner. When it is just Christian, my parents, and I, we have had a dinner made of appetizers and then play games. I actually had a lot of fun making all the appetizers for the dinner. Dad enjoyed the Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies. Christian listened to his music while playing since he has decided he doesn't like Christmas music.

Christmas morning was nice and slow. It was just Christian and me. Christian had a couple of surprises. The first one was when he opened his Playstation 2. He got a wonderous expression on his face and said "I didn't expect this. You told me a wouldn't get it." Then he opened the last present and exclaimed, "I wrapped this -- I wrapped my own Christmas present." This is what happened. I went shopping with Cheryl. When I got home I honked the car horn for Christian to help bring in the bags like usual -- forgetting there were Christmas presents in it. Of course, Christian saw the PS2 games. So...I had him wrap the PS2 games for the Livingston kids. I even took the presents to be mailed. Then I switched the tags and placed it under the tree with Christian none the wiser. It made for a priceless moment.

Then we just played and watched movies for a while. Around three we went out to my folks house. We watched Kung Fu Panda, one of Christian's new movies. It was actually pretty good. Right when it was over, Cheryl's family got there. We had dinner and then unwrapped more presents.

I had fun 'spoiling' Cheryl's kids. I had to get Addie some Strawberry Milk mix. She loves to come to my house and drink strawberry milk -- she only gets it at my house. So I had to make sure she had strawberry milk in her new house.

One of the best moments was when Brayden and Cambrie opened a waffle iron my parents got the whole family. They both got very excited and then Cambrie lifted it over her head like it was a trophy. It was awesome. Also, Santa left a letter for the Gibsons saying he had gotten a little confused about where to leave presents --their Tolleson house, Aunt Tanya's house, their Farmington house, or Ben's family's house in Saint David -- therefore he had left a bag of presents in Grandma house in a closet since they would be there sometime. The kids had to go around to all the closets to find Santa's bag.

All in all, it was a great Christmas. I hope everyone else's Christmas was merry as well.

My CPAP Machine

I finally got my CPAP machine the week before Christmas. Boy do I feel different. I am finally able to start taking an interest in things again -- things like cooking, having parties, singing, etc. It is great to finally have energy again :)

When I saw my doctor before I got my machine I found out that I was having 130 apeanas an hour. Plus, I had no deep sleep or REM sleep and I was not getting enough oxygen. No wonder I was so tired and had trouble breathing.

This is what my machine looks like. The clear mask goes over my nose. I have to breathe through my nose and basically sleep on my back since my mask likes to leak slightly when I go on my side. But I love it because it lets me sleep :)

Setting Up for Christmas

Cheryl and her kids moved into my house once Ben moved up to Utah. It has been nice. Here are some pictures of all of us decorating for Christmas. I had gotten a new tree a couple of weeks ago -- a prelit one, yeah!

Here is our snowman display -- a winter wonderland.

Cambrie and Addie enjoyed my Christmas animals that sing and dance.

Thanksgiving and Christmas in One Weekend

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun this year. We all went to my parents' house just like always. My sister from California had a close call of not coming -- they had all been sick with the flu. Luckily, they got better and were able to come. The cousins all enjoyed playing with each other.

Christian decided to practice tennis on my folks' back porch.

After dinner came the fun part -- at least for me. Looking at the ads for Black Friday. My sister Cheryl and I always go together. That is something that I am going to miss when she moves. Hopefully she'll come back for Thanksgiving and we can still shop.

Cheryl and I were up at 4:30 and done with WalMart and Target by 6:30. We separated then. My favorite purchase was my new washer and dryer. Sears had a great deal on the pair where I basically paid for the washer and got the dryer thrown in. Unfortunately, it was such a great deal that a lot of other people also got it and I won't get mine until the end of January :(

Friday afternoon all of us girls got together and went to see the new movie, Twilight. It was very good. I'm glad I read the book first because then I got some of the parts that others might not of.

Saturday was our annual Christmas Family Get Together. We had pizza, salad, and a Chocolate Extravaganza. (Everyone brought one chocolate item to share.) Before eating we had a remote control car race and shot off rockets. (We did this last year and loved it...so we did it again.)

Mom and Dad didn't drive the cars very well.

Addie is such a cutie :)

Sierra, Addie, and Maria.

After dinner and our Chocolate Extravaganza we had skits. Each family had to include a famous quote and a character from a fairy tale, movie, etc. They were really cute.

We ended the night with hot chocolate, popcorn, and the movie 'Elf' on my parents' back porch.