Mama you roll. Dada you rock.

We had a fun Christmas this year. While it was tempered by the constant rushing of seeing family at various locations and Valerie teething (got a new one in on the bottom), we enjoyed ourselves. I even managed to surprise Dan (not an easy feat since he is typically around when I get him something or I have to ask his advice on this or that). I bought him a couple pair of jeans and wrapped them up as from Santa then hid them until Christmas Eve when we took out all the presents and put them under the tree.

It all started Christmas Eve when the Warrens (my sister Sheri, her husband Randy and four of her six kids) came by Sandy's (my other sister who lives here in Albuquerque) house to prepare some items for the Christmas Eve Danish celebration planned at my Dad's house later that evening. I gathered up the kids and drove down to help. After a while Sheri and I got dropped off at Sandy's work to join her for her hair appointment. Sandy had asked her hair-dresser to add us to her appointment (which ended up being 3 hours long). Sheri closed her family cafe earlier this year and since she no longer had to have her hair long enough to pull back she was ready to chop it off. She looks really cute now! Sandy needed to have her color touched up and her hair trimmed. I hadn't had a trim of any kind for about two years and with my hair at waist level was finding it somewhat inconvenient to work with. I thought I'd go ahead and take it to shoulder level and donate the rest. Prescilla informed me that I needed at least 10 inches to donate it which put it right at shoulder level. Then she styled it to be somewhat shorter. It just brushes my shoulders now and I'm loving it. I just wish I could straighten it, but I don't have the knowledge and income needed to get myself a good flat iron. It's still long enough to pull back, but short enough to leave down without irritating me and getting in my way.

I mentioned that the appointment ran WAY long and that put us behind schedule as far as getting me back home so that I could get ready and drive us out to my Dad's house. We were originally supposed to meet there at about 4:45 and start dinner at 5. We ultimately didn't get there until 5:30 and we didn't eat until closer to 6. The rushing meant that I left a lot of things at home that I wanted (address and directions to my sister-in-law Sarah's house being among them) and Valerie wasn't letting me out of her sight (not uncommon when she feels that I've deserted her with strangers... which is kinda what I did when I went to the hair appointment). By 7:30 she was ready for bed and we hadn't finished with the Danish Christmas celebration yet. I have to admit that my temper was frazzled by the time we got home. We had originally planned to drop by Sarah's but we couldn't get ahold of anyone to remedy my forgetfulness. It's probably for the best since Valerie fell asleep in the car and went straight to bed as soon as we walked in the door. Our original plan to open a present each Christmas Eve was barely saved by Gabriel insisting that he didn't want to go to bed without having unwrapped something. After he was in bed, we finished our preparations (we ended up only wrapping the kids gifts since we were more interested in watching the opening than participating) and dropped into bed ourselves.

Christmas morning got a late start since Gabriel refused to change his pull-ups (I don't understand why he does this) and we wouldn't let him open gifts until he changed. When everyone was ready we sat the kids down and went to town. Our traditions say that Santa brings one gift per person along with a small stocking stuffer. The rest of the presents are from family or friends. The kids didn't seem to care where they came from as long as there was paper to rip. We had scheduled Dad, Lucynthia (my step-mom), and Sandy to join us for breakfast and they showed up starting about mid-way through the opening. Dad and Lucynthia found it quite fun to watch the kids having fun. After breakfast burritos and sour dough waffles (mmmm....) the guests left and we put the kids down for a rest anticipating the rest of the day to be crazy. We were right.

Around 2 or so, we drove to my mother-in-law's house for the gifts from them as well as to caravan to Bill and Prescilla's (different Prescilla and they are Cory's (Dan's step-father) parents). On the way there we dropped by a friend's house to pick up a gift they had (I figured it would be easier for us since we were in the neighborhood rather than having them drive all the way across the river). It's a family from our previous ward with a son the same age as Gabriel and he wanted to join me inside to say hi. They had gotten a Wii and were playing it. Gabriel unfortunately wanted to join them even though we were in a hurry and leaving was a tramatic experience for our son. Things got better when we got where we were going as there was food, family, and... presents. Despite the nap, Valerie still wasn't feeling tip-top and we ended up leaving a little earlier than originally planned. Once again, bed was the order of the day for the kids as soon as we got home. Our plans were different. Dan had received some video games for Christmas and was anxious to try them out.

What does all this have to do with the quote from my son that titles this blog entry? You see, while my mother-in-law just wanted to see us on Christmas day, her husband, Cory, had an alterior motive. He got an XBox 360 for Christmas along with several games (Guitar Hero, Burnout, Nascar, etc) and wanted Dan to help him set it up. And while my mother-in-law was buying games for her husband, she decided to get one for us so for Christmas Dan and I got Guitar Hero 3 (bundled with a wireless guitar controller) and a second guitar. The day after Christmas we decided to try it out. I'm not very good, but just yesterday Gabriel told us, "Mama you roll. Dada you rock." It's nice to know our children don't think we're uncool ;)