Christmas!

Christmas was so fun this year! It was definitely a busier time of year than usual, but everything was very worth it!

We had been looking forward to being with our kids on Christmas, seeing their excitement with gifts and playing with them all day. Two weeks before Christmas, we were mostly ready but I was still busy trying to finish blankets I was making for the kids and just had some loose ends to finish up. Then Justin came to me one night. Leading up to this, our neighbors across the street are some of our favorite people. Theresa had been fighting cancer (leiomyosarcoma/LMS) for 8 years. She was now on oxygen because the cancer had spread to her lungs. Justin didn't know this, but for a few days I had been praying to know how to help Theresa. She wasn't the type to ask for favors and if I ever asked how she was, the story would get turned and I was telling her how we were doing...she was just like that. I would offer with things, but just wasn't exactly sure what to do. So, Justin told me that at work, he had thought of an idea, but wanted to run it through me. He was really excited about it and it just would not leave his mind all day. Then he went on to tell me about this playground he wanted to build for Theresa for her grandchildren for Christmas. The only thing was we were limited on time and it wasn't going to be cheap to make...we didn't have an extra couple thousand dollars to make this.

We decided that if it was going to be possible (funds) to definitely go through with the plan. Justin called Sandy. She is our relief society president but also one of Theresa's closest friends. He told Sandy his idea but that we would need donations so she said it would be done and we should go on with this idea. She went on to organize the donations and had sent out letters to people who knew Theresa to be able to contribute to this gift. It was very cool to see so many people come together and selflessly give for this woman whom we all just loved. We saw more amazing things happen each day to get this project done in such a small timeline. It turned out that one of our friend's in our ward's brother and dad worked at pitcher sports and they ended up donating the slide, swings, steering wheel, and so many other things to go on this playground...saving us hundreds of dollars. Justin's work decided that they wanted to donate the metal for the playground. Someone moving in across the street from us next door to this family worked at a paint place over by Justin's work. They ended up donating most of the paint and then giving us a good deal on the rest. It was amazing to see and be in the middle of all of this. Justin would be gone a lot working on this, but guys Justin worked with would stay late with him welding and when they would have slow days at work, they let Justin work on the playground during hours. Because of all of the material donations on top of all of the cash donations, we were way under budget and were able to give quite a bit of money along with the swing set Christmas morning. Christmas eve night at 11:30, tons of our family members along with neighbors came to help move the playground into their back yard so they would wake up and see it. It was definitely a memorable Christmas.
Christmas eve we went to dinner...we always go to LaFerrovia but because of the playground and getting things finished up, we were just too late. They were closed so we headed to Applebees then still went to LaFerrovia's the next Tuesday (it's Mya's favorite restaurant). We sang Christmas songs, read stories and scriptures and set out cookies. The kids went right to bed...Mya was so excited for Santa to come.

Christmas morning was so fun with Parker and Mya! We got all of the presents opened before church (and yes, we kept checking facebook waiting for an update on Theresa's page...wondering if they had seen it yet). Mya kept saying thanks mom and dad...they loved everything. During the day we went and visited grandparent's and parent's houses. Mya said it was the best day of her life! Theresa had posted pictures of the playground before church and said how she had seen it while at the sink that morning and was blaming Shane for doing it. After church, her grandkids came over and they loved playing on it.

Temple Square Christmas Lights

For the past couple of years, I've been wanting to take Mya to Salt Lake to see the lights on temple square. She loves temples, so this way I figured she would love to see the temple and Christmas lights. But we usually don't make it down and we usually just head to Willard Bay's lights. Well, this year since the weather has been so nice, we headed down for a family date night. The kids loved it. Mya's favorite part was all of the water falls and ponds. She got so excited anytime we saw more water! Oh, she absolutely loved the model of the temple in the visitor's center on the south side of the temple. Have you seen it yet?? So awesome! So much detail to all of the rooms, down to the pictures hung on the walls. It was amazing!

Christmas

Christmas was so fun with Mya this year. Christmas Eve we went to dinner at LaFerrovia's, drove through Layton Park's lights, than came home and read Christmas stories and went to bed. We put Mya to bed early that night so she would wake up a little earlier than normal since Justin's brother would be calling Christmas morning. She must have been tired because we ended up waking her up around 8 to go open presents. When we walked downstairs, all of the presents were sitting out and Mya got a kitchen and that was sitting out unwrapped. It was like she didn't even notice any of that and went straight for her stocking to see what candy Santa put in there...We did talk up her stocking a lot so that's probably why. After we went through stockings, then I asked her if she even noticed the presents. Once I said that, she started looking around the room and her face just lit up with excitement! It was so fun. She would grab a present and hand it to whoever's it was and she LOVED her kitchen. Mya ended up getting, a kitchen, play food, a new pillow, Monster's Inc., clothes and a Pluto stuffed animal. Mya also got some books and a rocking horse from Justin's parents that she opened at their house that morning.
The day was so nice. We visited Justin's family, my parent's and Justin's grandparents then headed home and watched Monster's Inc. It was such a fun family day and such a great Christmas!

Christmas Parties

I'm a little behind with blogging, but let's see if I can't catch up today. At the beginning of December we had the Ropelato Christmas Party. We had Lasagna for dinner, played games, the little kids did a nativity play, then the little kids exchanged gifts. Here's some pictures from that party:
Mya was an angel for the nativity and she really got into dressing up. I wasn't sure if she would go for it, but had to have her halo and her belt on and every time her halo fell off, it was tragic. When she got to the manger scene, she really wanted the baby Jesus and cried for the baby....but Mary was a good mom and didn't give baby Jesus up. It was so funny. I think she did that because I told her to go sit by Baby Zaden, but I think she only heard the baby part.
Justin's cousins got him and his uncle Scott a gift based off of their last Elk hunt they went on. They got a target and bullets to help them out for the next hunt.
Mya got make-up and a Christmas book. She LOVED her make-up!!!

The Wayment Christmas Party was a lot of fun, too. Santa came first! Mya did a lot better this year with Santa. She was actually really excited to see him until it was time to sit on his lap, then she wasn't so sure. She did sit on his lap for a little bit though.
Then we had a ham dinner and exchanged gifts. What's a Christmas without the traditional pajamas from Grandma and Grandpa? Mya loved them and got a cool beach towel and bag for swimming that my Mom had gotten all the kids from her visit to Florida this year. She also got a cute shirt from her cousin Jess.My parents get us some food storage every year along with another present. This year we all got easy-up canopies. We were very excited since we had to borrow theirs this year when we went to Bear Lake.

One more Christmas Party! The Monday before Christmas Justin's mom had a dinner with just their family and did some gifts, played games and watched Elf. It was a fun night and Mya got a paint set (she's been very into painting lately) and pajamas!