Time to Fill You In...and gender reveal!

The holidays have come and gone and like always were eventful. For those of you anxiously awaiting the outcome of the ultrasound, I am finally getting around to filling you in. We got our wish and are having another boy! We are very excited.
Our Christmas travels started out eventful. While making our drive to Idaho Koyle showed up with hand foot mouth (again) and an ear infection. Needless to say the poor guy was miserable and I felt so bad he had to sit strapped in his car seat all day. We got him on antibiotics which helped his ears but we had to wait out the hand foot mouth. He got nasty sores in his mouth and couldn't eat or talk for 3 days. Luckily my sister braved bringing her children to see us with all our germs. I was so excited to finally meet my newest niece and boy is she a cutie! It was nice to visit with my sister too : ) and Justin enjoyed going goose hunting. After a few days in Rupert it was on to Boise.
I'm not going to try and detail the 2 weeks so I will just give some highlights:

• Jay & Tami turned their garage into playland for the kids. It was really awesome; the kids loved it and the parents loved being able to send the kids out. They even put a heater in so it was warm. Of course we couldn't let Koyle go in for the first few days since he was contagious still and it was so sad because he wanted to go out and play so bad. He would beg and cry to go out in the garage. We finally let him go out on Christmas day and he was so happy.
• Matthew's reaction to opening his pajamas on Christmas Eve: "I don't want these" as he threw them on the floor. Clothes were not the exciting gift he was expecting to open. I'll remember to warn him next year. 
• Christmas morning was a little anti-climatic for Matthew as well. Santa brought camping stuff which the boys loved but Santa wrapped his gifts to some of the other cousins and Matthew could not understand why the other kids were all getting to open presents and he just had to sit around and watch. One of the reasons I would really love being able to do Christmas with just my kids. I feel like a lot of the  excitement and gratitude of Christmas morning is lost in a crowd. 
• The highlight gift for Matthew was the remote control helicopter Koyle gave him; it even overshadowed the skateboard which is really saying something. It turned out to be a favorite among all the boys, young and old. Koyle's favorite of the morning was his airplane and helicopter.



Trenton came sledding with us and him and Jamie had fun walking on the frozen creek...until Trenton fell in and got his boots wet. Luckily it wasn't very cold.

• We tried to do a sledding day but while it was freezing cold down in the valley it was nice and sunny up in the mountains and no snow was to be found. So we played in the snow a little and found a few miniature hills that were just right for Matthew to walk up and down a million times by himself. The kids enjoyed being pulled by Troy and Sarah's giant 'puppy'.
• I always love shopping at Christmas and this year was no exception. I got spoiled by all which is hard for me to take at first but I really am grateful and love the things I got. 
• The boys got to do a sleepover with Grandma and Grandpa Koyle on New Years Eve and Justin and I had a fun night hanging out with friends
• We got to spend lots of time with Brent and Janelle which is always a joy! It was fun to see all our other friends who were home as well. We also spent some time visiting with a few friends in Provo as well.

Our drive home was much smoother than the drive well. A healthy Koyle is a happy Koyle! But seriously the kids were awesome on the drive. I'm sure there is much I am forgetting but that's what I've got tonight. It was another great Christmas home with family.

We do a gingerbread house decorating contest every year. 

Group picture from dinner on Christmas Eve

Jacque and Matthew picked out this material last year at Thanksgiving when she came to visit. She finally finished the quilt and gave it to Matthew for Christmas. It turned out awesome and Matthew loves it! 

Long story short here is that I got Justin hiking boots for Christmas that he ended up picking out himself. He told his brothers about them and they all wanted some too so their wives surprised them with a pair also. Now they can all wear their matching hiking boots together-precious!