ABQ Christmas - Part 1

For Christmas, we spent just over a week in Albuquerque with the Walquist side of the family. It feels very strange to say it, but that will likely be our last Christmas spent in Albuquerque. A few months ago, Amy's dad officially announced his retirement after 35+ years of being a pastor in New Mexico. Come summertime, Papa and Grammy will be moving to Texas-- yippee!! :) Because Albuquerque has been Amy's hometown for as long as she can remember, it will be very different to no longer travel "home" to New Mexico. However, we don't mind too much, as we are very excited to live just across town from Grammy and Papa soon.

Because it was Papa's last Christmas preaching at Immanuel in Albuquerque, our family traveled out there separately. Jason had church commitments here on Christmas Eve, so he stayed in town until that night and then drove to Albuquerque by himself (arriving just in time for Christmas dinner!). The boys and I flew out to Albuquerque earlier in the week so that we could be present for Papa's last Christmas service.

This was my first time flying with the boys alone, and they did an excellent job! It definitely helped that our flight was direct. Daddy dropped us off early at the airport. The boys ate their breakfast while watching the planes.  

The biggest challenge of the day was that our plane was small and only had 2 seats per side. That's not easy when you're traveling as a party of three! Neither boy was willing to sit across the aisle from me, so the decision was fairly easy-- both boys sat by themselves in a row with Mommy across the aisle from them. This setup wasn't ideal for reading books and playing a lot of the games that I had brought along to entertain the boys during the flight. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of turbulence during our trip, so I wasn't able to scoot over to their row and hold one boy on my lap either. So, we had to rely upon good old technology-- and lots of snacks!!-- to get us through the 2 1/2 hour flight. Thankfully, both Cody and Jaden were in good spirits, and our trip was overall smooth. They looked like such big boys sitting without a parent!

Once we got to Albuquerque, the boys were very ready to play with the family. We spent a lot of our Christmas week just relaxing at Grammy and Papa's home-- building with blocks,

playing games like Spot It...

and Crackers in My Bed (a childhood favorite of mine, one that the 3-year-olds all loved),

doing puzzles,

catching fish,

riding Trigger,

playing Kings in the Corner (a new game for Ian-- he was a fast learner!),

being silly,

and just relaxing!

At the end of every family gathering, we always have SO many pictures of adults reading to kids. That's likely because the kids are finally still and easy to capture in a picture-- ha, ha! All the kiddos really do love books, though, and requested reading time often. Usually, it would start with one or two kids, and then quickly pile up to nearly all of them. I think this reading time and these pics are just precious, so I'm including quite a few of them... :)

You will see this mask/helmet that Abby is wearing appear in several pics during the course of this trip. Andrew and Ian built the Darth Vader-like helmet and continued to add embellishments to it as the week went on. It became a very normal piece of attire that week, but it looks quite funny to see it now in the pictures. :)

And more reading pics...

Grammy and Uncle Andrew devised a great mid-week activity for the kiddos. It was a bit chilly to play outside for extended periods of time (especially for us now used to the Texas winters!), but this activity kept them all happily occupied outside-- downhill wagon riding!

My pics of the kids actually moving in the wagon came out a bit blurry so it's tough to tell, but Andrew really did let go of the wagon each time. Some of the rides got fairly quick. They all loved it though, and thankfully we had no accidents. :)

Eventually we came up with a way for all of the kids to fit on the wagon at the same time. They were a bit squished, but it worked!

Before church on Christmas Eve, the kids helped with the annual tradition of setting out and lighting the luminarias.

We only had two bags catch on fire. :)

I don't have any photos of our family of 4 on Christmas Eve since Jason hadn't arrived in town yet, but here are a few of Jaden and Cody in their Christmas best. Grammy and Papa bought them these sharp-looking outfits. So precious! Jaden and Cody loved their penguin ties but did NOT like having their shirts tucked in.

We attempted to get a grandchild picture with Grammy and Papa, but it's hard to get six kids to all smile in the same direction at the same time, particularly after they've just finished sitting through a church service. At least everyone matched quite nicely. :)

We opened Christmas presents late on Christmas Day, after Jason arrived. It was so nice to have Daddy back with our family. Cody and Jaden were definitely spoiled by their loving aunts, uncles, and grandparents with many great gifts.

 I love the developmental stage that Jaden and Cody were in this year for the gift opening. They understand what it means to receive a gift, but they aren't at the gimme/I-want-it stage yet. On Christmas morning, I asked the boys, "It's Christmas! What happens today?" Their first answer was, "Daddy's coming home!" and their second answer was "Jesus is born!" They liked the presents they received, of course, but that wasn't at all the focus of their day. I'm sure that attitude won't last forever, but for this year, I can sure learn a lot from their childlike faith.