The Holidays

So, it has once again been over a month since I have posted.  But, at least it hasn’t been more than 2 months.
So, to catch you up on what’s been happening in our life…here it is, in chronological order.
My niece Halle was going to be baptized over the Thanksgiving holiday, so the whole Cornell fam went out to Colorado for Thanksgiving for 2 reasons:  1 so we could be there for Halle’s baptism, and 2 so we could all escape cooking and enjoy my sister Tara’s DELICIOUS homemade food.  She did not disappoint.  She made 7 homemade pie, all from scratch, including the crust, mashed potatoes, turkey, homemade rolls, stuffing (also from scratch…none of that stove top for us…), and sweet potatoes.  It was quite a feast.  It was such a beautiful day that we even ate outside.After dinner we were so stuffed we could hardly move.  We just relaxed, played games and enjoyed being together.  Dan entertained the kids, as he always does…The kids love playing with him, and well, can you blame them?  I mean who doesn’t like to get thrown around on a giant air mattress?  That last picture is my favorite.  Josh is such a snuggle bug…and he loves Dan, so if there is ever a movie on, in this case, Cars 2, you can find him snuggled up somewhere close.  He is such a sweetie pie…and has given Danny the nickname, “hot dog”.  We aren’t really sure why…
The next day (Friday) all the girls went to see the Nutcracker in Boulder.  It was a really fun thing to do, and it was my first time seeing it.  The boys went to Dave & Busters, and had a blast.Saturday was the big day.  Baptism day!  Halle looked beautiful in her dress, and my sisters & I sang “Daughter of a King” with Halle.  It was such a special day.  My sister went all out and had a huge luncheon after, and all of their neighbors and Halle’s friends came.  I wish I had photos, but sadly I don’t.  She made giant cookie suckers, chocolate/carmel dipped pretzels, taffy, dum dum sucker trees, and chex mix.  It was really cute.Sadly, later that day we all had to go home, but it was nice to know that it would only be a month before we would see each other again, which brings us now to Christmas.  Every year Dan’s family has a Christmas party.  This year was no different.  We had a wonderful dinner, a nativity with many of the nieces and nephews and the annual cousin gift exchange.  This is probably my favorite part.  All the little kids get so excited to see what they got and what every one else got.  It turns into mild chaos.  We try to set boundaries, but they never hold up.  It gets too chaotic to even take photos, so there aren’t many, sadly.
We spent Christmas Eve with my family.  We had a great fondue dinner, and then stuck with the annual tradition of watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  Then we did a little nativity with my 4 nieces and nephews, which was very short, and turned into a “sword” fight with the sashes from the shepherd robes.  It was pretty hilarious. We tortured Chloe by making her wear a santa hat.  She wasn’t too happy.On Christmas day we went over early in the morning to see what treasures Santa brought.  The magic of Christmas is much more fun with little ones, so I was happy we got to go over.  Everyone was spoiled, of course, and it was so nice to spend the rest of the day with family.It was wonderful to have some time off work to be able to spend with family, and each other.  It was so nice to sleep in, and not have to worry about work, and having places to go.  We didn’t do too much on our days off, but that’s how we wanted it.  Just relaxing.
For New Year’s Eve we hung out with the fam and played some wild games.  Then, we watched the ball drop at 10…eastern time, and all the oldies/party poopers went to bed while us cool peeps hung out until to ring in the real New Year.  2012 will be a great year…mostly because it will be the year that I will stop being pregnant.  Hooray!!We hope the holidays were wonderful for all of you.  And, for the record, we are down to single digit weeks.  Only 8 to go…hopefully less.  At my last appointment he said, “Oh you are really running out of space in there, I don’t know if you’ll make it 2 more months…”  He better be right, because I am really getting my hopes up!