Christmas and New Year's

On Christmas Eve, we drove out to Northridge to get Elise's Christmas present: a white mini rex bunny.  We also made arrangements with Nicole, the breeder, to get a second bunny when her next litter was ready in January.  It turns out rabbits are a lot of fun!  We kept "Winter" in Elise's room for a couple of weeks, then moved her into the garage when the messy hay and smell got too annoying (plus, I'm apparently allergic to all of it.)  We're going to eventually have a big outdoor pen and hutch combo to share with the second bunny when we get him.

    

The rest of Christmas Eve was pretty relaxed.  The kids acted out the Nativity, and Ryan and I stayed up and watched It's a Wonderful Life and Midnight Mass while I wrapped presents.  I think it looked pretty good when I was done!
     

Christmas Morning!
  

Christmas Carnage

  

I love this painting.  The Nativity by Gari Melchers

   
Later on Christmas Day, we took Wiley (wearing his fancy jingle collar) down to the neighbor's house bearing candy for the humans and chewy treats for the dogs.  Our neighbor John Tunks is tireless in calling us whenever Wiley gets out and visits him.  It's Wiley's favorite place to play.
    

We had planned to leave for Utah on the 28th to go visit my family, but Celeste came down with a fever the day before, and we were afraid to take germs up with us given Chuck's health issues.  The bright side was that the kids were able to go to "Take Your Kid to Work Day" at Analytic, and I was able to go get new tires put on our van.  After a doctor's visit, we discovered that Celeste's troubles were due to an ear infection, and we were able to leave just one day late!
  

Sick Baby

Working at the Trading Desk

Utah was super cold, and got a ton of snow dumped on it.  I was so thankful we had gotten the new tires!  One night, coming home from Orem, we passed a dozen cars that had slipped off I-15, and I had to fight to keep control of the van.  The kids had tons of fun playing outside, though!
  

On New Year's Eve, the Murrays came to play for awhile, then the kids and grownups stayed up playing board games until midnight.  We rang the antique bell (it belonged to Chuck's grandpa who was a teacher,) and opened the door to cheer and let the new year in, then went straight to bed.
   

  
On New Year's Day, Ryan was kind enough to call me on speakerphone so I could listen to our marriage improvement class at church.  I felt very strongly that we needed to take this class when it was offered in early November, even though the timing was terrible with my second counselor mourning the loss of her husband, and Claire about to have a baby any day.  I appreciate their willingness to step up and allow me to miss second hour each Sunday for three months.  It really helped Ryan and I to learn better ways of communicating, and it did a lot to lighten the depression I was struggling with at the time.
  

  
We enjoyed my family's company for another day before we had to head home.  It was a short trip, but I'm so glad we did it.