Five Daughters: Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas

I have not done a good job of keeping this blog current. The last few months of 2011 flew by and I didn't share what happened. I won't be able to do them all justice, but here is a little re-cap of our holiday season.

1-Thankful turkey

2-Christmases--we celebrated Christmas twice. On December 16-17th we had Christmas with all the Erickson clan that lived in Virginia. Nina was only home for a short time and we wanted to be able to celebrate with her, so we hung stockings, had a sleepover, woke up early and all opened presents! Then the next week--the real Christmas we celebrated Christmas eve with just the seven of us. Christmas morning we opened presents and ate breakfast and went to church to sing in the choir. We were still busy with family after church with a visit to the Ehlers and the Ericksons.

3-rounds of stomach flu--Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. don't ask.

4-elves help set up the tree

5 pills taken every 8 hours to calm the pain in my mouth. (3 Advil, 2 acetaminophen)

6 months old when Erica learns to crawl, climb, and gets her first 2 teeth7 days off school (not including weekends). that's not a very big Christmas vacation.

11 Grandchildren together on the Ehlers' side for Thanksgiving

12 years old is how old you had to be to go the John Schmidt fireside the same night as the ward trunk-or-treat. So Elizabeth went to the fireside and sacrificed getting lots of candy, but she got a photo, an autograph and LOVED it.