Part 2...I got distracted:)

Happy New Year!

I intended to finish both holiday's yesterday, but got distracted with some other things I needed to take care of. I am sure you can all relate!

New Year's Eve was a hectic day, morning actually :) All the Henry's that were staying in our house flew the coup! The Idaho Henry's headed back up to Idaho and the Arizona Henry's headed to Michigan. A big thanks to Becky for dragging everyone to the airport...in two trips due to all of the luggage :)

We had a fun New Year's Eve party with lots of food, and a few fireworks. We also got to do our traditional nativity, the other kids decided to wait for Jeff (the current donkey!). We also got to have a mini Christmas, it was fun to do our secret buddy gifts.

Here we are at Bronner's...Jeff had run off straight to the nutcrackers, so he isn't in the picture. I couldn't believe how quickly he shot off!!

The rest of the week was pretty easy going! Jeff worked in the garage for several hours making some pens and pencils. My Dad tried to spend lots of time out there with him, unfortunately his job stole some of the time. I did lots of baking and even a little candy making. I got a lot more help with the cookie cutting than I usually do, which made it lots more fun than usual :) We also made our traditional trip to Bronner's in Frankenmuth, MI. Frankenmuth is a Christmas town, and Bronner's sells Christmas stuff...361 days a year! You can Google it if you would like to see their website, you never know what Christmas stuff you need until you look! We ended up with lots of new Christmas things: a few ornaments, 4 new nativities (I think it was only 4...), and a new nutcracker. He is, of course, German made (if you come to my house around Christmas time you will find that there are a few things that I am snobby about--nutcrackers are never made in China if they want to live here!). I think he is beautiful! I have come to realize that I am really lucky--Jeff never complains about going to Bronner's, and he doesn't complain about my purchasing, what some would consider to be obscenely, high priced decorations. I love them though--the smokers, nutcrackers, and pyramids are all part of Christmas to me!

My new nutcracker :)

My other nutcracker, and my smokers. The smokers use little incense cones and the smoke from the cones comes out of their mouths. The little red one on the left has been smoked lots, as the soot around his mouth attests too! I don't smoke my big ones because I don't want them to get black....silly :)

My pyramid. Little candles are placed in the candle holders around the bottom and the heat from the candles makes the pyramid turn. This one is pretty small, my Mom has a couple that have two or three turning layers.

One of the other exciting things that happened while we were in Michigan was Daniel's surgery. He had to have two tendons in his hand fixed--when he made a fist, the tendons slipped off the knuckles. It was really kind of gross to look at. We only got to see the giant cast on his hand, he had it removed the day we left and got a fancy splint, but we had to head to the airport before Dan got home to show it off. Here is a picture he took for me so that I wouldn't forget helping him put deodorant on his left arm pit, or washing his hair in the kitchen sink, or yelling "Dan! Arm up!" so that he would keep the hand above heart level to help the swelling down. What a good kid :)

Our trip to Michigan was really nice...we didn't end up doing tons of stuff, but it was lovely to spend time with my family, I sometimes forget how much I miss them! We are super grateful that they love us so much and are so happy to see us! We are already looking forward to our next visit!