Cooley Family Christmas Party!

I was totally in heaven with these two cutie pies on my lap! It started out with Just Naomi's baby but Eve got jealous and wanted to hold him too :).

Although my Grandma Cooley is now remarried and goes by Grandma Wiegel now, she still hosts the whole Cooley family gathering each year. That includes her ex-husband (my Grandpa) and his wife Diana. I love her for this. For being able to take the high road and still make it possible for our whole family to get together without awkwardness. We have started making the tradition of this get together the day after Christmas so that we can all have our own individual Christmases and then get together for the big shebang!

Josh stayed home this year because he hasn't been feeling well since he got out of the hospital and he had to go to work the next day and we didn't know how late this party would go. So I took the kids and drove to St. George! I'm not gonna lie, this party was NOT what we were all expecting for a number of reasons. It was still fun, and still wonderful to see and catch up with everyone, but let's just say I was glad Josh stayed home or he would have been really irritated with me for making him waste his last day of vacation for drama....

While we waited for the rest of the group to arrive, we gave Great Grandma and Grandpa Wiegel their Christmas presents!

Grandma loved all the pictures :).

You see, it started off with everyone (except me and Sadie) being late. Not casually late, but ridiculously late. Hours after we were supposed to eat, we were hungry and awnery and I was once again irritated with my extended family for not being able to get it together and for being so disrespectful to my Grandma. (This is why Josh and I don't host parties with my Mom's extended family anymore. They always come late, always forget to bring the food they were assigned, and I always end up extremely angry). I felt so bad for my Grandma because I knew the feeling all too well... Anyways, once we got food into everybody's hungry bellies things started looking up! Sadie brought her boyfriend (who at the time she was planning on marrying but they are since broken up) to meet the family. I felt bad for her because it wasn't the best day to meet everybody since they weren't showing their best selves. My mom was doing her usual "I'm too sick to get out of bed today so I'm going to be 3 hours late" (oh Lord that one gets old). Brian and Amanda couldn't go because Brian lit himself on fire while working on his car that had a gas leak with the garage door closed (rolling eyes here). Heidi and Dave were hours late and forgot to bring food because they had partied too hard the night before (both have been through the temple and Dave even went on a mission but they LOVE their alcohol). Our cousin Emma came with Heidi but her extreme Liberal Feministic ideals are enough to drive anyone crazy. Gena was here from Florida which was exciting! Oh and Naomi brought her drug dealing boyfriend.... Yeah, everybody's really done good with their lives (insert sarcasm here). Scott and Tammy also came and Jason brought his girlfriend (they're engaged now). Grandpa Cooley came without Diana this year because she is feeling worse than he is these days :(. He is so sickly and frail.... who knows how long he will be around. It is hard to talk to him because he has Parkinson's Disease and can barely get words out; it takes him a really long time to say something simple.

I love this 4 generations photo with my Grandpa. He is truly the sweetest man! It makes me sad that my kiddos won't remember him the way I do.

Anyways, we did the best we could with what we had and the middle portion of the party was actually really fun! We ate, and did a white elephant gift exchange. That was as far as the games went though because all the people who were supposed to plan games DIDN'T. I loved talking with Jason and his girlfriend Hannah because they are the most like me. I loved hearing their love story and feeling that longing for my own dating days when Josh and I were just starting out our lives together. I also loved watching my kids eat and play, talk, and make memories. I did my best to talk with Grandpa Cooley and I loved on Naomi's baby boy like there was no tomorrow :).

Then the worst part came. My Mom and her siblings decided since this is probably the only time they will be together for a while, to take my Grandpa Cooley into a private room and discuss what to do with him since this is obviously his last days. They all want to be there to help care for him but his wife Diana and her family have made that difficult. Her family is using his retirement for their own living expenses (so annoying) and they don't want our family knowing about it or having anything to do with their manipulating a poor old man for his money. Well, as always when my Mom's family gets together, someone started a fight. Like a REALLY BIG fight! Nathan and I sat back and watched while my Mom lost her mind sending everybody into a screaming frenzy. Nothing after that was the same. Supposedly after hours of fighting they had "worked it out" but nobody would look at each other or talk to each other. My Grandma Wiegel was so mad that her party that she had planned had taken a really unexpected turn (once again, SOOO DISRESPECTFUL!) and the layer of anger and awkwardness was so thick in the air you could cut it with a knife. So that was how the party ended. We got some cute pictures though! ;)

Sweet baby Cayson!

Evie getting jealous haha!

Evie girl running around barefoot and having a good time!

Baby girl never strays too far away from her Mama :).

Grandma and Austin!

I love this picture :).

Sister love!

I was really hoping this boyfriend would be the one for her. I REALLY want someone to go through the child raising part of life with me!!! The support and understanding would be so nice....

Hanging out with Grandpa who thinks he's funny hahaha!

All the tables were decorated with Hershey's kisses and Evie made it her duty to go around eating them all!

I love my life! Motherhood is the greatest blessing!

Oh Austin... hahaha!

Evie loving on her baby cousin too :).

Seriously this was probably my favorite moment of the whole day! I can see these two being close friends :).

Sadie's boyfriend John. He was nice while he lasted....

Sadie and I have such different looks, but sometimes you can actually tell we are related.

Like I said, she's never far! I'm constantly tripping on her!

The entire drive home my Mom sat in the passengers seat rehashing everything while I reminded myself to continue cutting these crazy people out of my life as I have been over the past couple years. You see, I used to allow this crap to come into my house, into my life, into my heart. But not anymore. Josh and I have set boundaries and have let everyone know that we don't want anything to do with their drama anymore. I have made so many people mad and have been the topic of angry gossip in my family now for years but I don't care because I have peace in my life. I wish so badly all these people could get it together because I truly do love them. But in the meantime, I can't live like that.