My Grandma would have been 90.

My uncle told about my Grandma turning 89 and how as soon as she turned 89 she would say she was in her 90th year.  She was looking forward to making it to 90.  I was looking forward to it too because it meant  another year with my grandma and another party.

Grandma passed away 4 months before her 90th birthday.

My mom told about how Grandma would call her in November every year and ask if she had any ideas of what she could give the grand and great-grand children along with the 2 dollar bills. Several years ago my Grandma and Grandpa wrote a poem called The Two Who Love You.  They framed it for each of us, and in the frame was also a two dollar bill.  The last line of the poem reads, "We'll remind you each year with a two dollar bill, of the two who love you and always will."  Anyway, this past year was a little different.  Grandma planned way ahead for Christmas. In April or May when I was in Utah, she showed me a box of dishes she'd purchased that had gingerbread men on them (it was a tradition for years to make gingerbread houses with grandma and grandpa).  She told my mom and I exactly how she wanted to package each gift with the dishes for the 35 grand kids and 45 great grand kids.

My Grandma's birthday was December 27th.  So on the 26th me and the kids and David drove to Utah to celebrate her.  We stayed one night in St. George with Taylor and Samira, my mom and I spent a day with my grandpa putting the gifts together, we had a small family dinner with my siblings and the Elberts, and the next day was the family Christmas/Birthday party.  And it was back to California the next day.

I finally got to hold my nephew.

 Just whipping up some eggs in St. George.

Gift opening with family and the Elbert's.

A few months ago I found some really fun fabrics with vegetables on it.  I told my mom it would be so fun to make little lap blankets for my Grandpa and his best friend, Bobby.  Both have spent their lives gardening and they met about 7 years ago when my Grandparents moved to Centerville and now they garden together everyday, and will, I'm sure, for the rest of their lives.  Bobby has been a great friend to my grandpa since they met, and even more since my grandma passed.

(My dad and Addie.)

Don't forget to take us with you, Mimi!

Sharing a bowl of soup at the Garrett family party.

 Addie tried to make a getaway with some gifts.  Those bags she's holding have flash drives in them that have  about 25 scrapbooks scanned on them.  My Grandma spent hundreds and hundreds of hours documenting hers, my grandpa's, and all her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren's lives in amazing, detailed and journaled scrapbooks.  She often talked about what would happen, and who would get them when she was gone.  Of course all of the children would love them, and the thought of scanning thousands of pages was overwhelming to everyone.  Everyone, except Paul.  We have a really nice scanner here at the office, so for the past several months every time we traveled to and from Utah we'd bring a couple books home, return them on the next trip and bring more.  Until he finally got every page scanned all the way through my grandma's funeral.  (My mom finished the last few pages for her.)  No one knew about this except my mom, Paul and I, and my grandparents.  It was an incredible gift that my grandma was oh so thankful to Paul for doing it, and the family was overwhelmed with the gift.  Grandma would have been amazed to see those tiny little flash drives and know that all her work was on each one.

She worried like crazy when we had her books here.  She always wanted them close to her!  I'd make jokes when we'd pick more up on our way out of town that she didn't need to worry because we strapped them good on the top of the van and I was pretty sure they wouldn't blow off.  After one trip home she called me and said, "This is awful, but after you left yesterday with those books I had the thought, If those kids get in a car accident, I'll be more worried about the books than I will be their kids!"  I loved her honesty. :)

Little busy Addie wouldn't leave the berries on the banister or the ornaments alone.

On the way back to California we stopped to see William again.  Garrett really wanted to see him because he was always so confused about us saying we're going to see the baby, but he never got to.  And every time we go to the hospital he points at it and says, "Baby?"  The nurse let Samira hold William up at the door to his room, and Taylor held Garrett at the door to the NICU so they could look at each other.  That made Garrett happy, and it probably cleared up some confusion in his curious little mind.

Addie hates the car seat.  It was a long day and she was so happy to see her daddy at the end of it.

No more road trips until May!

California Christmas

My brother David came to California for Christmas this year.  On Christmas eve we had Paul's family and Poppy over for dinner and ornament making.

We made photo block ornaments and Garrett painted an airplane.

I made a traditional turkey dinner.  Except that I bought an already cooked turkey and ham from Honey Baked Ham and that was the part I was stressed about so I just did all the easy stuff.

We made reindeer food to sprinkle on the grass.  Garrett took it very seriously because the reindeer need to eat too.

Oats and sugar sprinkles.

Checking out the tree before opening our new pajamas and heading to bed.

Christmas jammies!

The living room when Santa was almost done.

  A friend told us a few weeks ago that there are 3 phases in a man's life:
-When he believes in Santa
-When he doesn't believe in Santa
-When he is Santa

It was fun for us this year because Garrett was so excited and Addie follows in his every footstep so she was enjoying it, too.  Having said that, Paul and I sat and looked at it all before going to bed and talked about how overwhelming it is to look at, and that I couldn't help but think about the parents who were sitting in an empty living room wondering how they'd explain to their kids the next morning why Santa didn't come.  We have a few different ideas for next year.

Good morning, kids!

Pre-breakfast treat.

After breakfast we headed to the in-laws for more gifts, hanging out, and dinner.

Playing with remote control cars.  Disneyland has this shop kind of like build a bear, but its for building your own remote control Cars cars.  My mother in law built them.  They are so cool.  I'll have to take a close up of the 3 we got.  Garrett had so much fun.

It wouldn't be Christmas without a game of Doody Head.

 We ended the night with our 4th year in a row, late night run to Denny's.  It was a good Christmas.  But I guess it really ended with putting the kids to bed late, trying to make a path through the mess, and beginning to pack for our trip to Utah the next morning.