Christmas 2012

Hope you all enjoyed your Christmases. We have a good time over here, we even got a white Christmas!!

Danny's parents came up on Christmas Eve and we were able to spend a little time with them. We went out to dinner and then came home for brownies.

 It started snowing early in the day and Danny didn't actually believe me that it was snowing because the snowfall was a little sparse. But I knew it was there. It kept snowing for most of the day and finally quit in the afternoon.

{Good morning cute boy!}

We had a nice quiet breakfast at home with our traditional "coyote" breakfast. I don't know how it got that name, but it's just fried dough covered in powdered sugar or jam. Yum, yum. There really weren't any presents to open, other than one that Cohen got. I had opened my gift, a dustbuster, the night before. You know you're getting old when you ask for and are extremely excited about getting cleaning tools. It had to charge for a full 24 hour so I was pretty bummed I couldn't use it right away.

 

Cohen got some hot wheels cars in his stocking that he loved. I have never seen him sit still for so long and actually play with something. If I would have known how much he was going to like them I would have gotten them a long time ago!

{Monster truck meets medical kit}

After Cohen's nap, we headed over to my parents house. We played some games and had appetizers and visited. After dinner, we opened presents, always fun with all the kids running around! The adults draw names for presents and we all usually get the kids something.

{Dinner}

{Presents}

{The men, minus one brother} 

{The ladies}

{The fam}

This Christmas just felt so easy stress wise. We kept everything super simple and we had a great time. Hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating as well! 

Christmas Day Top 6

Here is the recap of our Christmas Day, in no particular order:

1. New rain boots, a heating pad neck warmer, and a big costco jar of jelly bellies (carrying on my Gramma Rinehart's tradition). Danny got a coffee maker and some new Seahawks slippers. Cohen got a new little piano toy and some blocks for when he is a little older.

 {Opening his stocking}

 {Ready for presents}

{New Toys}

2. We took the gold star balloon to Carter. We put it in Cohen's little hand and let him send it up to his brother. Someone told me a story about a son that had lost his dad before he was old enough to know him. Every year they would send balloons up to their dad. The son had asked his mom how he would know his dad when he got to heaven and she told him that he would be the one holding all the balloons. I like to think of Carter like that, when we get to heaven we will see him holding all of his balloons.

 {Holding onto Carter's balloon. Yes we forgot a hat and this one was in the back of the car}

 

{Sending his brother a balloon for Christmas}

3. The Help. I have really been wanting to read this book and it showed up in my stocking! I have already made some good progress on it due to the fact that Cohen has been taking some good, long naps. Must be all the excitement and I think maybe he is having a little growth spurt.

4. Cohen ROLLED OVER!!! We had him doing his tummy time and he just put his arm up, got his head up and over he went. Danny and I both got to see him do it so that was pretty cool. He still has a hard time keeping his head up so we are trying to work on that but we were pretty excited that he rolled over, even if it was an accident.

 

 {New hat from Gramma}

5. Coyotes. These are a tradition in the Rinehart household. I have no clue why they are called coyotes since they have nothing to do with coyotes. It is just fried bread dough, but they are so good. We eat them with jam or powdered sugar, or both if you are Danny.

 {Mmm...worth waiting all year for}

6. Stockings. These were always my favorite growing up and Danny knows how important it is. He always does a great job! These are our new mostly matching family stockings.

 

Overall, we had a nice relaxing Christmas Day. Cohen was pretty tired and took several good naps and then played with his new toys when he got up. The boys came over and brought us some leftovers from their Christmas lunch with my mom and dad. In the evening we took Carter his balloon and then drove around and looked at Christmas lights.

Christmas Eve Top 6

Christmas Eve at the Rinehart's in top six fashion, in no particular order:

1. We had Mexican food for dinner. Tacos, enchiladas, chips, salsa, and I made cheesecake for dessert.

2. NO football! Well, not at the house at least. The boys all went over to Joel and Christine's to watch football so we had some peace and quiet before the party started.

3. Cohen's cousins finally got to hold him. We were a little bit naughty since Cohen isn't really supposed to be around people/kids, but they were healthy and we bathed them in hand sanitizer. They did a really good job with him and Cohen did really well too. Cohen also got to meet my youngest brother John for the first time. He was actually in isolation for most of the night other than when he came out for pictures and to look at trains. It's so hard to keep him away from "normal" life.

{Cousins in matching jammies made by Gramma}

4. Family picture. See that gold balloon in the back? My family got that for Carter. I am so thankful to my family for remembering and including Carter as part of our family even though he can't be here with us and not expecting us to "just get over it". We have felt incredibly supported by our families.

 {Rinehart side: Back - Danny, John, Chuck, Josh, Christine, Joel

Front - Jana, Cohen, Dad, Mom, Michelle, Karen, Jordan, Josiah, Eli}

5. I got a "Project Life" book from Karen that I am pretty excited about. For a year you take a picture or write a little journal every day and put it all in a scrapbook. I probably take a picture every day anyway so that shouldn't be too hard, it will just be keeping up with putting it in the scrapbook. We also got a really cool sign from my brother Chuck that he made. I'm so excited to get it put up in Cohen's room.

6. Cohen loved looking at Grampa's trains. He has a few trains from when he was a kid that he has been working on getting to run again. Cohen would just watch them as they went around the track and couldn't wait to get his little hands on them.

And also, Ron Tranmer, the man who wrote the poem "The Broken Chain" that I put up on this post commented on my blog! He has written a lot of really great poems that seem to express a lot of the feelings that I have lately. You can go here to see his comment and a few more of the poems he has written that he left there as well. I was pretty excited about it because he writes such great poems.

Merry Christmas

While our Christmas this year won't be how we thought it would, we are still excited to celebrate the reason for Christmas. We will celebrate the time when Jesus came to earth to give us life. We are so thankful to all of you for all of your support, encouragement, and love through this difficult and joyous time in our lives. We hope you have a wonderful time celebrating with your family and friends this Christmas.

Love, the Kimmels