Balch Family Blog

We had a wonderful Christmas that stretched over several days. The most precious event of this season, was watching our son marvel at baby Jesus. We read the Christmas story and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus before endulging in the gifts.

We were in Tucson for a few days to visit my mom and her husband Ken. On Thursday we rode on a horse-drawn wagon through Winterhaven (a neighborhood that is famous for its Christmas lights and decorations). Then on Friday morning we opened gifts and enjoyed a traditional Christmas dinner.

We drove back home on Saturday afternoon, just in time to get ready to go to church for a Candlelite Lord’s Supper. Mark’s parents met us there and we stopped by Applebee’s for appetizers after the service. That was yummy!

After putting Camden to bed, we helped prepare things for Santa’s arrival. He brought Camden a bike, that has not been touched still today. Oh well, Santa can’t win them all! 😉

His favorite gift was the train table his daddy built for him. Mark poured several hours of love into making a custom train table and saved us a couple hundred dollars!

Once gifts were opened here, we headed over to Mark’s parents house. We enjoyed snacks and an English based Christmas dinner complete with chestnut stuffing, fried potatoes (one of my new favorites), Christmas pudding, and our all time favorite – trifle! Our family was spoiled with gifts again! After we finished playing a game of CSI, we headed home to go to bed.

Then yesterday, we had one more day of Christmas. We joined the “Lafferty” side of the family for prime rib, and yes more presents! We had a lovely time.

So now we get to find a place for all these new toys and gadgets some where in our house. Yikes! We have been blessed this season as we are all year long.

Please be sure to check the gallery for some pictures of our holiday. We had a lot of fun this year!

For Christmas, Camden’s Gma and Gpa Balch and Gma and Gpa Revells joined forces and purchased him a wooden swingset. Mark and his dad spent 2 Sunday afternoons building it. Camden was able to play on it this morning, yes 6 days early, but how can you explain that to a 2 y/o?

Please check out the pictures I have posted in our gallery. We are going to try and get some rubber bark to put down as a squishy floor.

So things have been calm around here. Camden is recovering from his ear infection. Our biggest feat was getting the medicine into him. All I can say is, “Thank you chocolate milk!” I will do my holiday baking tomorrow and deliver to the neighbors. Mark’s Christmas party for work is tomorrow night as well. Camden is going to stay with Gramma Tucson for a few days. He will really enjoy that I am sure. All he does is play, play, play! I love it, because he is always very tired when he gets home! 🙂

I guess that is it for now. Nothing too exciting going on! I hope you are finished with your shopping and able to enjoy the wonder of this season.

That is what we are dealing with right now. Camden woke up from his nap on Sat. with a fever. I took him into our after care office and he has an ear infection. We got him started on antibiotics quick. We thought they were working well too. Sun. afternoon he was pretty good and Mon. he was great. Well 4:00 am, he started feeling really yucky. Poor kiddo! He is coughing so hard that he makes himself throw-up. We spent the day watching movies and snuggling on the couch. I sure hope he is feeling better soon.