Christmas in the "Q"

What a great day! We missed being around family, but knowing that this was our last Christmas without our other loved ones made it all okay. Our dear friends invited us over for Christmas dinner, and we had a great time complete with the Nativity and violin performances by both Brigham and Benjamin. On Christmas Eve I slept on an air mattress at the end of the hall to prevent any little Christmas creepers from getting into the presents before we were all awake. I woke up at 5:45 to Benjamin saying, "Wake up, Mom! It's Christmas!" I made him wait a whole 10 minutes until his other brothers woke up, and then the magic began! All I can say is that Christmas is so much more fun when you have little kids! For all the trouble that Jacob gets into, he makes up for it (well, almost all of it) on Christmas morning. He was SO excited to open presents that he was actually shaking as he opened his first few! It was so cute! And he was so excited about his presents. Santa brought him some CARS pillow books (made of cloth-- maybe these will last a little longer), and he sat and looked at them for probably 20 minutes before he was ready for his next gift. Benjamin was excited and running around and was so cute and so good. Not once did we hear, "Hey, that's not fair!" Little Ty was just content to push one of Jacob's boxes around the room. After opening all of our wonderful gifts, we had a turkey dinner and spent the afternoon playing some of the games that we got. In the evening we watched The First Christmas and reflected on what the day is all about. It was a terrific day!

Jacob-- Master of the House

It has been only minutes since I regained possesion of our house and Jacob Dax. Today is garbage day, so after getting Benjamin out the door for school, I took Ty and pushed the garbage can to the street. Thirty seconds later when we got back to the house, we found the door locked and Jacob twisting the knob from the inside. I called to him to unlock the door, but surprisingly (ha, ha), he didn't. I checked all the other doors-- all locked. Trying not to panic, I went to my neighbor's house to get our spare key I'd left with her, only to find her father-in-law there watching the kids since they'd left for AZ this morning. We called her, but she couldn't remember where she'd put the key. Eventually, my neighbor's father-in-law pulled the screen out of one of our windows and broke in. Jacob was sitting there listening to music-- content in his new-found freedom and power. Little stinker. I think he's got some coal coming his way.

In other Dastrup news, Benjamin made his teacher a Christmas card yesterday.It read, "Merry Christmas Ms. Zuni. You are the beast teacher ever! From Benjamin" It was awesome. I wanted to leave it, but Brigham thought it best to correct his spelling.

For those of you who just can't get enough of our cute children, here's a little video clip for your viewing pleasure:

Not Wanting to Be Outdone By a Girl...

Ty's cousin Emmy (who is about 7 weeks older than Ty) just started walking about a week and a half ago, and apparently, Ty couldn't take being outdone by a girl. Today, right in the middle of Jacob's parent-teacher conference, he just decided that he could walk. Talk about a distraction! Jacob's teacher was in the middle of a sentence when all of the sudden Ty started walking around. I felt a little bad because she completely lost all of our focus, but what can you do when your baby starts walking for the first time? Personally, I think he's been capable of walking for awhile but just waited until he had a good audience. I'll admit that I felt a twinge of jealousy (okay, a flood is more like it) that I was not the object of his first pedestrian experience. No, it was a cell phone that inspired him to go biped. What do you suppose that means???

Thanksgiving Fun

This year we were happy to have many of our Dastrup family members come to join us for Thanksgiving. We all had a wonderful time together. Thanksgiving day started off with a 5k Turkey Trot that Brigham designed for us. We didn't think that Benjamin would be able to run the whole thing, but we assigned him to stay with his aunt and do as much as he could. We were shocked when he was keeping up with us until we forbid him to continue because he was leaving his aunt in the dust. He surprised us not only by running the whole thing, but by finishing off with an 8:00 mile when Brigham went back for him after he was done! We wonder what he could have done if he had been allowed to run as fast as he wanted to the whole time! As it was, he finished the 3.1 miles in 33 minutes and took 3rd place in the race! We were very proud of him! After a breakfast of cinnamon rolls and eggs, we headed out for the Dastrup family football game. Benjamin was a lot better this year, and both teams wanted him, so he took turns playing on both. It was a great game and a lot of fun. The feast that afternoon was delicious, and the company was better. We had a great day. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Dastrup, Aunt Lizzie, Aunt Annie and Uncle Tyson and baby April for making the trip and for all your help in making it a Thanksigiving to remember!