Catching up is hard to do!!

I cannot believe how hard it has become to stay caught up with my blog!!  The real problem is that life has just gotten SO BUSY!  The other problem is that I have been going back and forth between a camera with a broken flash and my phone camera; neither of which produces great pictures and my phone makes it especially hard to download and upload pictures from.  Anyway I am way behind and so I don't need to waste any more time making excuses.  November was a very busy, crazy month.  J left the end of October and was gone until the first week of December.  We found out the day before he left that I am pregnant (WOOHOO!!), and due June 11.  We are excited to be having a girl!  Especially AJ who has spent the last 8 years asking, hoping, and praying for a sister.  So on top of not feeling well, being a quasi single mom for a couple of months, and the responsibilities of my church assignment, I didn't have any time to blog.

Anyway onto pictures!  Trying to figure what pictures/highlights to include and what to leave out feels rather overwhelming and I honestly would just let this blog drop except that it is the best way I have right now of documenting our lives so here goes my attempt to catch up on 2+ months without spending all day.  Starting with November...

This was the sign on AJ's door for a while.  It's so nice to be loved.

AP had a run in with a much bigger kid after school one day.  They other kid was giving him a hard time, AP swatted him with his shoe, and the big kid pummeled him.  Besides the visible damage he had a slight concussion, but the school administration was right on top of it and got it resolved quickly.  All in all 8th grade is going much better than 7th and I really feel good about the support we are getting from the staff at the middle school.  

My parents came to our house for Thanksgiving dinner

And for dessert we headed to my brothers's house.  Relaxing after filling our bellies...

We brought cousins back with us for a sleepover and they entertained themselves and us by making up pet shows for Grandma and I to judge

Then in December, I went with D on a preschool field trip to see some Reindeer.

We celebrated J's birthday

I made some charm necklaces to give teachers for Christmas.  Added some little saying to go with them like, "the measure of a good teacher is found in the heart of the child; grateful to know my child is in good hands,"

"Thanks for taking the time to share your wisdom with me,"

and "you're a gem; thanks for sharing your knowledge with me."

 We had our Henry family Christmas party at my house the night before my parents flew to Philadelphia (to spend the holidays with Amber and Marcus).  My mom personalized paper bags with felt, ribbon, buttons, etc to put each of our gifts in.  She spent hours on them and they were amazing!  Too bad I don't have a better camera to do them justice.

We had pizza for dinner and then the kids decorated sugar cookies.  After that we opened our gifts from 

Grandpa and Grandma.

Grandma and Grandpa gave each of the grandkids webkinz, so of course we had to have a petshow!!

After Christmas J's parents came and stayed for a few days.  The Roundy's also drove down and we met up in Ogden for Asher's birthday party.

Then we celebrated Matty's birthday at our house.  The kids had fun decorating their own cupcakes.  AP's is a brain (in case you were wondering).

As for Christmas Eve and day...  We always read the Christmas story from Luke on Christmas Eve.  After reading it the kids acted it out using some felt puppets Mom Carol made us a couple of years ago.

 AP didn't want to help act it out this year and was a patient observer instead.

After reading the Christmas story the kids each choose one gift to open.  They all chose their exchange gifts from cousins, and were thrilled with the contents.

 Christmas morning D was having a hard time figuring out how Santa knew he wanted a baby monkey pillow pet.  Afterall he hadn't told him or put it on any lists.

Neon mascara for hair.  Too much fun!!

 We also opened our Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve.  The boys loved their skylanders shirts!!

We had a really good Christmas, and maybe at some point I will learn not to stress over it, because it's always good.  This year I was particularly stressed because it had been so busy that I didn't have a chance to really think about my own family's Christmas, let alone do any shopping, until a few days before.  Of course at that point I couldn't find much of what was on the kids' lists, and I kept worrying that they would be so disappointed.  Also because I got such a late start, with not a lot of time to shop, they really didn't get as much this year as they have in the past.  The past several years we have been trying to cut back and I always think I am, but I usually start shopping so early that we end up with more than enough in the end.  Well this year, there really were not a lot of presents under the tree.  AP commented on this in the weeks leading up to Christmas adding to my anxiety.  But as it turned out they were all so happy with what they got, and didn't seem to notice there was anything missing.  They really enjoyed each gift instead of tossing one aside to get onto the next thing and we as parents have never received as many expressions of gratitude from our kids as we did this year.  I guess it just goes to show that less really can be more!!