Ashton's Christmas

I say Ashton's Christmas, because this year was ALL about Ashton.  I thought I'd feel bad for him having a birthday so close to Christmas and that he would get looked over.  Boy was I wrong (at least for now) his birthday and Christmas all just sort of blended together this year.  He kept getting more and more presents leading up to Christmas day, which came with even more presents.  He sure is a spoiled and loved little boy.  

Our trip to Florida was supposed to be part of our family Christmas present so we tried to keep things more simple.  I decided to do a count down to Christmas, everyday Ashton and Jason had to find a piece to the paper chain which either told us what activity we were doing or had a treat attached to it.  We were able to do so many fun things: Festival of Trees, decorate cookies, setting up our Christmas tree, visiting santa from a far away safe distance, Dickens Christmas Festival, arts and crafts,  Christmas lights, watch Christmas movies, read books, drink hot chocolate, donate presents, date night for Mom and Dad, etc.  Ashton got his own nativity set to play with on one of the days, I loved his version of how it all happened.  Wiseman in palm trees and donkeys on roofs.  

The Millward Christmas party was also one of our activities.  Ashton won a goldfish at the White Elephant, and by won I mean he cried until he got it.  He has since named it (tongue click) ya know like the sound your tongue makes when you click it against the roof of your mouth... no idea where he came up with that.

But he really loves his little fish.  

Santa also joined the party.

Unfortunately Jason had to work lots of nights and weekends, we have kind of switched places in that aspect.  Jason had to work on Christmas so Christmas Eve we headed to the Beckstrand's to drop off presents since we wouldn't be there for the gift exchange the next day.  Ashton got to open his presents early while we were there, which led to all of us opening our presents, and then when we got home we ended up opening all of our presents there as well.  Jason spoiled me and I really got every single thing I had hinted/asked for. 

Originally I was pretty sad that Jason had to work Christmas, however, Christmas turned out beyond perfect.  We got to spend some one on one time with the Beckstrands the night before and then Christmas morning Ashton excitedly woke up to see what Santa had brought him.  He had asked for trains or "hoo-hoooos" as he calls them.  He knew Santa would bring them and was beyond excited for this.  

Instead of needing to rush off to families houses we just enjoyed the time and played while Jason went to work.  That afternoon we headed up to Morgan to spend the rest of the day with the Snyders.  We got to Skype with Stephanie, eat yummy food and Ashton got all the attention being the only grandchild.   Grandma's house has a great marble set that he loves to play with, since we will be moving Grandma got him one of his very own.  He was super excited over all of the candy that came in the stockings too.  

I never got my "formal" Christmas picture with us all dressed up. But we did get our usual Christmas jammies shot. :)

Merry Valiversary

Last February Jason attended an INS (International Neuropsychological Society) Conference in Canada.  I was bummed he was leaving me with a little two and half month old, and that he was going to be gone over Valentine's Day, but I wasn't that jealous that he was going to Canada.  

This year however the conference was in Hawaii, so we took full advantage and decided to combine Christmas+Valentine's+Anniversary for a nice vacation for just us two.  It was much needed and came at the perfect time.  We spent four days just the two of us.  We didn't event turn the TV on once while we were there, which really meant a lot to me.   

Day One was mostly traveling.  We stayed at the Hilton Waikoloa Village, on Hawaii Island, which is where the Conference was being held.  This place was amazing.  It is so big that it has a tram and boats that takes you from one end to the other.  We still walked most everywhere I wanted to enjoy the sunshine as much as possible.  It is located right on the ocean and the views were incredible, no matter which way you looked. 

It was also filled with so many different kinds of birds and other natural wildlife. 

We spent most the day exploring everything and then met up with Jason's friend, and mentor, Brock for dinner. 

Day Two was the day Jason was presenting at the conference so while he got all dressed up and headed out to be smart,

 I dressed down and spent the morning reading and relaxing here.  I read a whole book and half this trip.  Can't remember the last time I was able to have enough time to myself to just read like that.  

Jason joined me that afternoon for some pool time and snorkeling . The resort has a big ocean fed lagoon in the middle of it.  I had heard that you can often see sea turtles in the lagoon and was determined that we would see one.  We ended up seeing so many, this was the first time I had ever seen one in the wild, another thing checked off my bucket list. 

 Since the lagoon is directly connected to the ocean there were all sorts of incredible fish that I had never seen snorkeling before.  That night we found an empty hot tub and just relaxed together.

Day Three I made Jason take me to breakfast at Lagoon Spoon.  They have the most genius breakfast menu.  You pick two cereals and two toppings, and milk.  I went with Cookie Crisp, Frosted Flakes, Gumi Bears, and Skittles, don't worry I used Skim Milk.  Jason had granola and fruit (still love you and your healthy cereal choices)

We spent the morning whale watching from our breakfast table.  That afternoon we went with some of Jason's friends and drove to Hapuna Beach and went boogie boarding and played in the ocean.  That night we met up with more people and drove up Mauna Kea, to go star gazing.   

Day Four we spent breakfast whale watching again.  It was migration season for humpback whales and we couldn't even keep count of how many we saw.  

We went snorkeling one more time and this time we got up close and personal with the sea turtles.  I thought one was going to kiss me it came so close, instead it ate a leaf right in front of my face.  We realized they would eat the leaves right out of our hands.  

Jason said he thought this was the best part of the trip.  

We hit up the water slide and hot tub and swam through the different waterfalls that run into the pools before we had to go pack up.  We had to check out of the hotel at noon but didn't need to leave for the airport until 5:30 so we left our bags and took a trolly to some shops to get Ashton a present.  We had some time to kill when we got back so we sat and watched the dolphins.  Oh ya did I mention the resort had dolphins?  This was another daily thing for me.  I could watch them forever.  

There was a mom with a five month old baby, this made me miss Ashton the most watching how the little baby just followed the mommy around the whole time.  Our flight home was delayed and miserable.  While the trip was too short and over too quickly I was sure excited to see my little Ashton baby.  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Beckstrand for taking such great care of him for us. 

Wonderful Christmas Time

I was in love with Christmas this year.  Can you take a guess why? I love reliving everything through Ashton's eyes.  Everything is new and exciting and magical.  He was obsessed with Christmas lights and ornaments.  Everywhere we went this year was full of "ooohs!"and his cute little finger pointing at everything.   I snuck and bought a tree this year, Jason didn't want one, scrooge right?  I guess he had a point though, Ashton was constantly trying to pull everything off of it.

Work was the busiest it has ever been and honestly it about did me in, but it made me really appreciate and enjoy every moment I had with Ashton. 

 Hard to believe how small the little man was last year.

Christmas Eve we went for a drive through the lights at Thanksgiving Point.  I'm not sure what Ashton was more excited about, the lights, or the fact that we let him drive.  He's obsessed with steering wheels.

We had our traditional Chinese Take Out Dinner and read Ashton the story of baby Jesus.   Then once Ashton was asleep Jason and I got to play Santa for the first time.  We just got him one big present, a bike with a detachable steering wheel.  I was giddy putting this together for him, and could hardly sleep that night being so excited for him to wake up in the morning.  I thought we would have to point it out to him when he woke up, but as soon as we walked into the living room, he about jumped out of my arms for it.

I have never seen him so excited over a toy.  We were feeling like very good Santa's Helpers.  He just sat on it and giggled and couldn't stop smiling and looking at us like: "is this really mine?!"

This was by far the best part of my Christmas, just watching all of his excitement over just one toy.  We also had an amazingly perfect white Christmas, I love living in Alpine for the views alone.

We joined the Beckstrands for Christmas Lunch and more gift exchanges.

Then headed to the Snyders for Christmas Dinner and more gifts.  Between his birthday and Christmas Ashton has pretty much tripled his toy ownership in the past month.

I have a feeling Christmas will just keep getting better and better.

Merry Christmas.  Love, the Beckstrands

Christmas Miracle

 This year hardly felt like Christmas at all with everything we had going on.  However, we did get to spend some time with close family and friends, plus our own little Christmas Miracle.

The week after Ash was born Blue Lemon had their 3rd annual Lemmy Awards.  I had helped plan this event and wasn't about to miss it.  So we left Ashton with his very expensive nanny (aka the NICU) and got dressed up for the night.  Can I just tell you how good it felt to fit into something other than sweats?!

Red Carpet night, with yummy food

and good friends.

We didn't make it to any family parties, or to see the lights, we did most of our Christmas shopping in between NICU visits, and we didn't even begin to think about making treats for the neighbors...

But we did have our own little Christmas Miracle

December 15th at about 11:00pm we got to bring the best present in the world home with us after 18 long days in the NICU.

We shut our doors and didn't leave the house till after New Years.  Jason's Parents and Crystal and Skyler came to visit Christmas Eve.  Jason and I had our traditional Chinese take out for dinner and spent the next 24 hours in a Lord of the Rings Marathon.  

Only to be interrupted by my entire family coming up Christmas Day and surprising us with Christmas Dinner and one of the best sibling gift exchanges we've had (we decided on a $2 limit this year = creative and funny presents).

Jason and I opted out of presents this year and took to snuggling Ashton as much as we could.

Definitely can't complain.

Our Christmas Vacation...

When I found out that my vacations days expired at the end of the year, I said "alright see you next year!" and Jason and I decided to make the best of our 12 days with no school and no work.

We did lots of last minute Christmas Shopping and stayed up past 9:30!

We got to spend some time up at the hospital with this little dude.

And had a great second "married Christmas" together.  Since last years Christmas was spent in another Country (Canada counts) and that's not a very realistic tradition we tried to start some of our own little family Christmas traditions.  

We spent Christmas Eve looking at Christmas lights, getting take out, watching movies, reading Luke 2, and cuddling on the couch.  Jason's Mom always gives everyone Christmas Eve pajamas.  This year ALL of us got "Super Skyler Jammies"

Christmas morning we woke up, opened presents together and headed off to Bountiful to spend the afternoon with Jason's Family.  We opened more presents, ate tons of yummy food, and played with Todd and Brittany's new Kinect, (what ever happened to the good ole easy Atari games!?) 

That night we headed off to the Airport to meet up with my Family and pick up my brother.  Calvin Klein (AKA Eric) had been in Korea teaching English and breaking little Korean girls' hearts for the past 4 months.

Eric coming home was a pretty big deal for our family.  Jayden and Eric overlapped on their missions/adventures and this was the first time we had all been together for Christmas in 4 years!

We went to church the next Sunday with my family in Morgan.  It was so neat to look down the row and see all of us sitting their together.  I loved it.  Santa came to my families house on Sunday so we had more presents and more yummy food and fun games.  

Jase and I got very spoiled by both of our families this year.  Thank you so much for making this Christmas such a fun and memorable one.  We love you all!

We had a Beckstrand Family party on Monday at Flips.  Where I found out that my husband was apparently a gymnast in a past life.  His first time every using one of these things and he was doing all sorts of flips and fancy tricks.

We also got to play in the snow (thanks again Dad and Mom!).  It had been a couple years since I've boarded and Jason, as always, is amazing.  

This was also the first time in 6 years that my brothers and I snowboarded together.  We were all dead the next day but had a blast.

Thanks to my Uncle Randy, and the snow storm preventing him from coming to Utah to use his timeshare, Jason and I also got to spend a night up at the Wolf Creek Resort.  Love little getaways.

Topped our vacation off with a fun New Years Eve, with more Chinese food, games, movies, and friends.  

Wow, I'm really not looking forward to going by to work on Monday and entering into another Semester of school and never seeing Jason.
Here we go 2011...

Christmas Activities

I feel like I really haven't gotten into the Christmas Spirit as much as I normally like to. To much stress, work, I really have no excuse though.

We did get a  fun gingerbread house making night thanks to the Glovers.

Melissa is the best, she had homemade houses for us, all sorts of candy, and even soup and rolls to make it a perfect Christmasy night.
When I grow up I want a cute house and cute baby and be good at cooking just like her.

I think I ate more candy than we actually put on our house that night.

But tis the season right?

Christmas in Niagara

Since we were not able to make it back to Utah to be with Family for the Holidays, Jason offered me the consolation of our own little get-away trip instead. So rather than presents this year Jason surprised me with a 3 day trip to Niagara Falls, Canada. We left Christmas Eve and stayed at the Niagara Falls Hilton.

It is the tallest Hotel in Niagara Falls and we had such amazing views of them right from our room.

When we checked in we were even upgraded to a Junior Suite and had more room in our Hotel than we do in our own apartment. Jason surprised me by bringing Christmas Lights and Stockings.

Combined with the fireplace, Christmas Pajamas from Jason's Mom, presents from home, and even an Alaskan Nativity scene from my sister (Thanks Kayli!!!) we were all set for our very own first Christmas. Christmas Day we woke up and opened presents together before heading to a huge breakfast buffet. We then headed straight to the pool!

Later that afternoon we set out to explore Niagara City and check out the falls up close.

They are so big and beautiful.

That night we went to Brasa, a Brazilian all you can eat place, for Christmas Dinner.

It was so much fun to relax and not worry about the stress of work or anything else. I love it when Jason plans things they are always so thought out and perfect! It was so much fun to spend so much time just with him and not have anything else going on. Thanks for a great Christmas baby!