Christmas 2008

Our family Christmas tree with a falling star!

Opening Christmas jammies on Christmas Eve.

Almost ready to see if Santa came. Hali can't figure out why I am so excited.

Santa brough Hali a baby set.

Travis and his new golf clubs.

Opening presents from Grandma and Grandpa Barney (her pink wiggle car).

Daddy helping Hali open presents from Santa.

Hali loves her new doggy from Grandma and Grandpa Hoopes.

Ready to open night presents with her pink cheeks.

" What?" He was very surprised!

Travis with his surround sound, and me posing with my wedding ring!

This is always such a hard post for me to do, because there is always so much to tell. So instead of giving a play by play I will just give some highlights and a fun story.

*Hali got spoiled this year from Santa and family. Santa brought her a baby with a stroller, carseat, and bassinet. She also got a wiggle car, clothes, Baby Einstein 26 DVD set, a pound puppy dog that wags it's tail, and many other fun toys.

*I, along with Hali was very spoiled. Santa brought me two new nightstands that match my bed, a large Christ pictures, and clothes. I also got a large deep chest freezer.

*Travis got his new golfclubs and other fun things that guys get.

Both Travis and I were very surprised at the end of the night when I received my wedding ring, and Travis got his surround sound system.

THE BACKGROUND STORY: Travis LOVES surprises, and there is nothing worse to him than finding out what he is getting for Christmas. Well he happend to accidentally come upon his gift (a surround sound system) hidden in a closet at his parents house and was devestated! So I had to come up with a plan B. We decided to have Clint (Trav's brother) receive the surround sound on Christmas morning, and Travis would be getting the golf clubs - the plan B (however, really wanting the surround sound). Everything went perfectly, and I could see all morning just how envious Travis was for Clint about receiving the surround sound system. In Travis's family they save one present for Christmas night, before everybody goes to bed. So I decided that I would give Travis the surround sound system that was in reality always his that night.

In the mean time he had a surprise of his own. In October my main diamond on my wedding ring broke! You heard me right it broke. Yes it is a real diamond, and yes a diamond can actually break if it is hit on the right angle (it doesn't even have to be hit hard). Now you all know, be careful with your diamonds. Ironically enough I never remember hitting it at all, but one evening I looked down and it was all foggy. We sent it to Travis's uncle (who is the jeweler we got it from) to see if there was anything that could be done. To make a long story short, Travis just kept telling me they were trying to figure out a solution. I just wanted my ring so I kept telling him to have them put a fake diamond in it and I would be happy, I just wanted to wear something on my finger again.

Fast forward to Christmas evening opening night presents... Travis' mom was filming and I was worried that Travis might get the hint that something more than just giving a little present was going on, apparently he was worried I might think the same thing. So he started opening his surround sound system and the picture above speaks for itself he was shocked and everybody was laughing. After he opened his present, it was my turn which turned out to be like twenty boxes all wrapped in each other, with each one smaller than the previous When the boxes started getting about ring size I started to wonder and was so surprised and happy to finally get to the jewelry box with my diamond ring. Surprisingly they were able to reshape my diamond and take off the broken part making it about .2 smaller than it was before. I can tell, but I don't think anybody else could. I love it and finally feel like Iam married again!

Overall, it was a very memorable Christmas filled with surprises. However, everybody knew about our suprises except for Travis and myself. It was so fun to see our little Hali start to grasp the concept of Christmas. What a great time of year, we were and are so blessed!