Thanksgiving and Christmas 2013

Well here we are again.  So much to say, so little time!!  For Thanksgiving we spent the morning at the Southwick's and John had to work that afternoon :(  It's always sad to say goodbye to him on holidays, but such is life.  The day after Thanksgiving my parents returned home from their mission to the Philippines!!  The entire family woke up bright and early to greet them at the airport and then we went back to the house for a waffle breakfast!

People get mad when they see John do this, but I know Deja likes it and I trust him ;)

Settlers Anyone?  John won this round!

           

The babies that were born during the mission and my sister Becca who is expecting a boy March 1st!

We did a special Thanksgiving dinner with my parents at my brother Joe's House that night!

 Deja has just been growing like a champ.  We put her in the bumbo a couple weeks ago to try it out and I think she has mixed feelings about it.  But at least it's something new!

"Woah, Nelly!"

Helping Dad with his Sunday School lesson

"You thought I would like this hat?"

Flying Baby!

 We decided to wait till my parents got home from their mission to bless Deja since it was so close!  After lots of thought, we ended up having the blessing the same day as they gave their mission report (Dec 8th)!  My mom was also rooting for us to have it this day because it would have been my Grandma Rasband's 100th birthday.  It was a crazy day and so to cut down on the amount of people in the house we decided to do a special brunch for the friends and family coming specifically for the blessing.  John gave a beautiful blessing.  I'm so grateful to have him as the patriarch of our little family.

Great Grandma Southwick aka GG 

Love these two

My parents love having Deja around so much (especially my mom).  I went back to work the week after they got home, so they've been helping us out with babysitting duty and we are so grateful!!  It really was perfect timing, and as far as work goes, this Friday is my last day!  So excited to be a full time mother.  It really is my dream :)

Classic Santa pic!

 My favorite part about Christmas this year was that John didn't have to work on Christmas eve or Christmas day!  It was so fun being able to relax and be together.  On Christmas eve my two single brothers came and spent the night along with my sister Becca and her husband.  It was fun opening presents with family around.  Later that day we headed over to the Southwick's (I need to take more pictures when we're over there) and had a nice dinner and evening with them.  I think I had a stomach bug so that was the downside of Christmas day.  Every time I ate something I felt awful, so I eventually stopped eating, bleh :(

As you can tell, Deja is thrilled with the tights from Grandma ;)

 As you may or may not remember, last year John and I went ALL OUT as far as presents were concerned.  It was pretty embarrassing.  So this year we tried to be better.  Some fun things that I got were the movies The Little Mermaid and Cinderella, some boot socks, a couple Cardigans, a necklace, a cafe rio gift card, and an awesome Juicer!  John got the movies Robin Hood, Warm Bodies, the final season of the office, a couple accessories for his Kindle, some tie bars, a plaid button up shirt, and a navy blue dress shirt.  We are still pretty spoiled for "cutting back" haha.  We also got tons and tons of chocolate, which I can't complain about because every year when John asks me what I want for Christmas (or any holiday) the first thing I always say is Chocolate :)  We also got Settlers of Catan and a measuring board from John's siblings and some plastic organization bins from my siblings.  It was a wonderful Christmas!