True North: December 2008 Recap (it's a long one!)

December was sooo crazy!!..fun, busy but crazy. And unfortunately, I don't have pics of everything that happened. This will be like a journal entry for the Todd and Hyo North family so if your not interested in reading it, no worries :)

Saturday, December 6th: We started the Christmas holiday with a party at our place for my family, the Kim's. It was so fun and chaotic and crazy!! As always, there were tons of food, everyone ate till they were stuffed and then we just hung out and talked and played. One memory from this party was Ashlyn volunteering to say the blessing on the food. It started out with.....Heavenly Father, thank for this day. Thank you for Todd and Hyo (this was when Todd and I opened our eyes and looked at each other trying not to laugh) and Ethan and...she proceeded to name all of the family members that came (which was about 11). Then she was just about to end the prayer when Todd prompted her to bless the food. We all laughed. How cute. We also celebrated my birthday since some of the family members were going to be out of town till Christmas.

Monday, December 8th: Had ANOTHER party at our place for the play group families which included Ernie and Emily Kim, the Ortons, Powers, Starbucks, Defudis', Bridans, Sumsions, Tanners, Browns, Wolds, Van Fleets. It was wild...we had about 20 kids running around rampant and everyone talking and laughing. It was so great. I loved it. And everyone loved it too. I find that I'm like my mom when it comes to social parties and feeding people. Two things she did when we were growing up. She seemed to always invite families or groups of people and sometimes the whole Korean Branch over to our home and feed, feed, feed. It was her way of serving those she cared about. I find great satisfaction in having people over too. I love the chaos, especially when there's good food and great friends. Thank you everyone for coming. We'll have to do it again.....in the summer!

Wednesday, December 10th: Ethan FINALLY had his tear duct surgery done. It was about time. He was the first one for the day and so we had to check in at 6:00 AM @ Primary's. Ethan was very good natured throughout the whole waiting period. There was even a boy about his age that was also named Ethan. They were so cute playing with each other. It got super sad when I had to hand him over to the Anesthesiologist who then took him into the surgery room. That was when Ethan knew something was up and started crying....it broke my heart. The whole process only took about 10 minutes. It wasn't very long. I got to finally go to him and he was just screaming. He was much happier when he realized that we were leaving the hospital and so was I.
(Sorry the pics are bad....forgot the camera and so these are taken with the camera phone)
Thursday, December 11th: Ashlyn's Preschool Christmas Program. Their class (the Polar Bears) sang "An Australian Christmas" and "Reindeer Pokey." It was so cute!

Saturday, December 13th: TraskBritt Firm Christmas Party at the Grand America Hotel. It was fabulous as ever. While many of the law firms had to cut their Christmas party from their budget, Trask was in great financial shape and we all benefited from it. And as always, we were given Vchocolates as a party favor...yummo!!

Sunday, December 14th: Stake Christmas Program. Turned out great. Our ward choir did "The First Noel/Pachabel's Canon." Bob Sullivan, one of the choir members and salesperson that he is, recruited a few more men from other wards to sing with us...as a result, the women recruited a few of their own (we are the smallest choir). So, it all worked out.

Sunday, December 21st: Ward Christmas Program with the Choir.....yeh, I was totally nervous. I've never done the whole thing by myself. The choir was awesome. I'm glad that it was all done, but at the same time, I started thinking about next year's program....call me nuts...

Thursday, December 25th: CHRISTMAS!!! It was great. We had the video camera rolling so we didn't have a lot of pics taken. Ethan's first present he opened up was some puzzles and he wouldn't let them go until he realized that he had other fun presents. He was all over them. Both he and Ashlyn were so excited to open all the presents from Santa, Grandpa and Myrna, friends, as well as from us. Afterwards, we had breakfast, cleaned up and got ready for Christmas dinner at my parents where there were more presents from cousins and from my parents. It was an amazing day.