Christmas in Idaho

****Just to warn you, there are lots of pictures!******

With that said... I will tell you how our Christmas events went down.

Tyler worked December 23rd until 5:00PM, came home to load the car, and then we left Portland at 6:00PM to drive to Idaho. The roads were relatively nice to drive on, hardly any snow, and little ice.

We arrived to Fruitland at midnight and stayed up for another 3 hours or so catching up with all the other family members who were there (which was really everyone). It was one crazy night and poor Quincy was a little confused as to what was day and when was night.

Amidst the chaos of having 9 adults and 2 kids under the age of 2 in one house... we had a few problems with Quincy. If we know one thing about Quincy it's that he's not about to miss out on ANYTHING when there's a party going on. Thus, Christmas eve it was difficult to get him to go to sleep early. He's been doing relatively well in the potty training process. He is almost always accident free during the day, but we are still keeping him in diapers at night.

On Christmas eve Quincy was having a bit of a difficult time. I took him to the bathroom to try and go before bedtime and we had a showdown. He was very sleep deprived and decided to make a bad decision in biting his mom. Boy oh boy did it hurt! It took everything in me not to lash out at him in pain. After it happened he got a spanking and then we went downstairs to have a time out--where I showed him what he had done to me and explained how much it hurt. He immediately realized his mistake and was nice enough to apologize and give me a hug. However, the damage was done... and to make sure it didn't happen again he was restricted for the remainder of Christmas eve night.

This picture doesn't really capture the full aspect of how it looked. I took this right after he did it. It later puffed up and later bruised pretty shade of purple and green. Luckily he's only 2, so Santa decided to let it slide this year.... because Santa had already 'made' Quincy's presents......

Before Quincy went to bed we had the usual Howard Family tradition in sharing one special thing that happened to us within in the year. Our family's good news was that we are expecting another little bundle of joy and that Tyler was blessed to find a wonderful new job.

Christmas Day went much better than the night before.

We all slept in until 8:30AM or 9:00AM and then headed upstairs to see it Santa came.

Quincy was pretty excited to see that Santa had left some things in his stocking.... and even a few presents. ....

Quincy and Jakoby in their new Christmas jammies.

With so many people in one household the amount of gifts was unbelievable..... this year the Christmas tree was in the dining room.

Not even all the gifts fit under the tree.......

It seemed that everywhere you looked there were presents....

Perhaps that's why it was difficult to get Quincy to focus on each task at hand.

Santa's stockings...... and a few other small gifts.

I was glad to see that Quincy was equally excited about the new Snoopy toothbrushes and Gummi Bears that Santa brought him.

Undoubtedly the stickers beat out the toothbrushes and candy though..... this kid can't get ENOUGH of stickers!

Quincy kept saying..... "There's more?" As we reassured him to dig further in his stocking to see what else Santa left him.

By far the best gift this year from "Santa" was this Mega Blocks red firetruck. Quincy LOVED it..... and if I remember right Santa happened to find this beauty for a smoking price of $2.00 at the Salvation Army. (With a little bleach and elbow grease it shined up like new.) Boy that Santa is a great shopper.... he sure knows when he sees a good deal. In fact, I doubt his elves could have made this for 2 bucks!

Even Jakoby seemed to enjoy the Santa firetruck.

Gotta love those early Christmas morning pictures huh?

Quincy seemed to have the most fun taking off the bows.... he even fond some creative things to do with them.....

These were just OUR family's piles of Christmas gifts! Man, I guess we must have been pretty good this year!

Jakoby and Grandma Teesy.

It was funny to watch Jakoby as he was nearly buried alive in all the wrapping paper mess.

Quincy also approved of Jakoby's new toys.... they both LOVED this ball popping toy!

Because there was so much going on..... we had a hard time getting Quincy to focus long enough to open his pile of presents. He was more interested in the name tag stickers.

By far, Tyler's favorite gift was a new XBOX.... well, new to him. Derek, his brother was kind enough to give Tyler his old XBOX since he bought a new one this year. Tyler has already been putting it to use at home.... and maybe, MAYBE one of these days I'll make his wildest dreams come true by playing it WITH him. :)

THANKS DEREK..... TYLER LOVES IT!

Grandma Teesy and Grandpa Kent didn't disappoint in spoiling all of their children, but especially the GRAND children. Quincy made a haul. Surprisingly, he LOVES these books that they got him. By far, his favorite book is the 'Mr. Grumpy' book. I personally can't get enough of hearing him say "Mr. Tickle".... because it sounds like Mr. Ti -tull.

Kent and Teesy, you'll have to tell me where you found those books because I think we need some more. :)

Jakoby lucked out from his grandparents, who got him this push and go toy. Boy, I think Heather and Trevor have the Howard's to thank for Jakoby's most recent progress in taking several steps at a time..... It won't be long before Quincy and Jakoby are running circles around each other and playing basketball out on the court.

We had a wonderful Christmas!! I hope all of your family's did too!