*more Christmas leading up to Christmas*

So I realized finally that I spend a lot of time at a little place called the University Hospital and I hardly have any pictures of my friends, my work area, and the fun and fully capable doctors that I work with.

We are kind of lame in the holiday decorating on Labor and Delivery. I mean we didn't have any decorations anywhere until right before Christmas when our unit secretary decided she had enough of our unfestiveness and demanded we all make snowflakes. It was a slow night so we hopped onto Pinterest and found some snowflake patterns and were able to create a winter wonderland.

This picture does not do it justice.


We also had an Elf party one night. Probably one of my most favorite parties we have ever had at work. It was a sugar fest complete with candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup. Oh and spaghetti and pop tarts and coke and hot cocoa and chocolate syrup and candy cane forest cocoa stirrers. And we couldn't forget the beef and cheese.


We made spaghetti a la Buddy and dared everyone to eat it. I have to brag that I was the brave and was the first one to try it although there is not proof. One of the residents was trying to take my picture and I turned away because I wasn't expecting it to be cold so I kind of spit it out at first but after I got over the initial shock, the actual taste wasn't that bad.

We had a couple other brave souls...




...and Ben will eat anything.


A group picture of some of the wonderful people I work with.


The next night was Justin's company party and then we made it to the Nutcracker this year without any fiasco like last year.

We went to eat at the Olive Garden and then we immersed ourselves in the genius of Ballet West.



It was pretty awesome because I bought the super cheap seats and the theater was quite empty the night we went. So we just scooted ourselves a few seats to the left and were sitting in the posh $44 seats. We felt like high rollers.



We bought shakes, made gingerbread houses, I went out to lunch with the Scott women, and we had our Christmas eve party at my cousin's house. It is always such a fun time when we get together. We visited, decorated gingerbread Santa sleighs, ate dinner, exchanged our semi white elephant gifts with a fun "left/right" story, my uncle read the story about a family who had Christmas for a dollar, and there was a ginormous pinata to top off the evening.




Miss Olive was entertaining us with her many facial expressions.





Poor Luke was sick that night (and ended up getting diagnosed with strep the next day) so here is a picture of me and a glimpse of the top of Luke's head.



I wasn't lying when I mentioned the pinata was ginormous and my aunt stuffed it so full of candy and fun little toys that the kids were in heaven.



Justin and I went on a fun date to Hale Center Theater to see A Christmas Carol which I highly recommend to everyone. Then I totally copied my friend's family's tradition of "The Night Before the Night Before" and went out as our little family to dinner and the movie "The Adventures of Tin-Tin". We all loved it--I didn't have any idea what it was about and it exceeded all my expectations. It was like an animated Indiana Jones. I loved starting this new tradition because it is a night that usually doesn't have other obligations and it was nice to spend time with just our little family.

This brings us to the next day--Christmas EVE!

We started the day at my parent's house with brunch. I did not get one picture which kills me. It was a great way to start the morning!

I was proud of myself that I was able to get all the wrapping done before today so we all went to Justin's aunt Heidi's to celebrate with his family. As always, we had a fantastic time.









One of the highlights of the evening was playing the pipes. It was so cute to see the little ones anticipate when their number would come up on the chart and then enthusiastically hit their pipe with gusto. If anyone has a pipe cutter and needs a gift idea for me, I would love a set of these babies.

Here are Justin and Mel explaining how everything works and leading the controlled chaos.




A snapshot of the Scott boy cousins with their new Utah beanies. There is one missing from the picture because the excitement of the next day caused him to have a little meltdown.


We went home, tucked the kids into bed, got out the milk and cookies for Santa and the carrots for the reindeer, helped Santa find his way around the living room, and then I headed off to work.

It is most definitely the most wonderful time of the year.