Christmas Gifts

We had a great Christmas. Most of it went just like you want Christmas to go. Some of it didn't.





This was the first Christmas Eve I've actually had trouble sleeping due to excitement surrounding the gifts we've just laid out for the kids. It was a fun Christmas morning. After Rex spent a few minutes looking at his stuff, he said, to himself "this might be the best Christmas ever." The kids were pretty happy, and we had a lot of fun watching them go through their new stuff.






After a nice morning we packed up and headed to Macy's Mom's house to spend the mid-day. We opened gifts there and enjoyed ourselves for a while. As we were getting ready to head to my Mom's house, Molly threw up. We put her down for a nap, but she wouldn't sleep, and started getting agitated and bothered. Macy noticed that she was breaking out in hives all over the place, and a rash had spread all over her skin. Clearly she had eaten a nut, or something that had set off a pretty bad allergic reaction. We gave her Benadryl, which she threw up again (in the bath), and tried to comfort her, but she just kept getting more and more distraught. The Benadryl seemed to work for a minute and the hives went away, but ten minutes later, they were back and worse than before. So we picked Molly up and started the car to head down to Primary Children's Hospital. This is a bad thing, because when you check a kid into the hospital with an allergic reaction, they pretty much require you to stay 24 hours. Even on Christmas.




Right before leaving though, Reed and I gave Molly a blessing. She calmed down immediately, and her scratching and hives began to abate again. A minute later, Julie got a hold of a pediatrician friend of hers, who agreed to meet us down at his office- even on Christmas. By the time we'd been on the road five minutes, Molly was completely calmed down and nodding off under the Benadryl. The doctor checked her out, gave us a prescription, and sent us on our way. Molly was perfect the rest of the day.

We spent a nice afternoon with my parents and family. Then we packed everyone up, with the Suburban full to the ceiling with presents and loot, and headed home. Around North Salt Lake, the Suburban suddenly lost power. We pulled off to the side of the freeway to try to figure out what was going on. Molly caught on to the fact that we were having trouble and began about an hour-long stream of questions and comments on the situation. Rex and Lucy were mostly just put out that I was driving at 10 miles an hour down the side of the freeway.

I got the engine going a little again and coaxed the car forward some more down Beck Street, but it completely died right in the middle of the intersection of Beck and Victory Road. Completely dead. We sat right in the middle of the intersection for a minute until I got enough power to move us just barely beyond the intersection, but almost completely blocking Victory Road. The heater stopped working and the kids started asking for blankets. It felt like around 10 degrees out there, and it was getting really cold in the car. I got on the phone to try and find a towing company.

After we sat there for a few minutes in the freezing cold on the side of a dark road on Christmas night, a dark SUV pulled up beside us. We were shocked to recognize our very kind neighbors the Morgans. They had seen a random Suburban stranded on the side of the road and decided to stop. And happened to have a big SUV and a towing cable.

The Morgans towed us all the way up to our house and Michelle Morgan even carried Molly (who never stopped asking questions and telling Rex and Lucy "the car's not wookin" the whole, slow way home) into the house.

We got the kids to bed and then Macy and I flopped onto the couch and started talking about what an enormous disaster this day could have been. We could have spent it in the hospital, or even worse, on the way to the hospital with a barely breathing child in a car that would only make it half way there. Or we could have spent an hour or two by the side of the road late one freezing Christmas night. A lot of things could have gone wrong for us on Christmas, but only a few did, and lots of things went really, really right.

Our Christmas was a nice reminder of how great we have it in our lives. We've never been immune to problems, but we've also been so well taken care of. We could not be more grateful for the good things we have in our life, including our wonderful kids, our health, our family and neighbors, and, of course, Christmas.

Hope everyone had a very merry one, like we did.

Childrens Nativity

Christmas Photo Dump

Some things we have been up to this Christmas season:

What Molly does during the Christmas season........

And our Christmas tree...........

One of my favorite ornaments that Ali brought me from London.

"Don't Do Dumb Things"

My Dad had several sayings that he rotated through, like all good dads, I guess. I can live without hearing him say "You gotta get up pretty early in the morning to beat your old man," and am very glad to be done hearing that "Someday when you're on your mission in (Estonia, Guatemala, Uzbekistan . . . ) you'll be wishing you had some of that homemade bread of your mother's with you."

But the most prominent of all of his parental mantras was simply "Don't Do Dumb Things." I outgrew a lot of those sayings, but I still feel like I need to hear this one every so often.

So that's what Davis, Christian, and I decided to name our new blog. Don't Do Dumb Things. Come spend some time there when you have a chance.

www.dontdodumbthings.com

Feel free to pass it on . . .

Happy Birthday to Ryan!

I know birthdays aren't a big deal to Ryan. He makes it so easy on me with zero expectations, but I couldn't let the day go by without saying something about this amazing person that I married. He is truly remarkable and I am amazed everyday that I got to marry him. He is everything I am not , and more. He is so fun and game and low stress. He is interesting and expressive. He is so unique and so loving. He takes care of me so well. He loves me just the way I am, but by example always makes me want to grow and progress and become more than i am. I love him for that. He is also such a great Dad, and each of our kids have a unique and amazing relationship with him. He is so good at that. He is one of the most capable people on the earth. Can do or figure out anything. People lean on him and trust him for that. It is alot of pressure sometimes I am sure.

Happy Day Big Ry. We love you!!