Post Christmas Haze; Christmas 2013 part 4

So after things calmed down, and the trip was finishing up we had the awesome opportunity to stay with Gram's parents; Grandmom and Granddad.  

We had a last minute photo opt to make sure we got everyone with everyone.

Really there are no words to express the impact Granddad and Grandmom have had in my life.  They are some of my best friends, and like Mother, if I can be just a little bit like them, I am a better person than what I was before.  I have learned so much strength and empathy and love and patience from them.

Heavenly Father has truly blessed us with everyone in our lives.

It was a good trip.  It was long, it was short, it was cold, it was fast, it wasn't long enough, it was amazing, it was touching, it was all we could have hoped for and more.  It was a great Christmas- we sure did miss Paca Clint and Mimi- not seeing them was sad, there was something missing without them, but we thoroughly enjoyed those we did see.

It was an awesome Christmas full of memories and fun, and I can't wait to see everyone again soon!

While we were there, Monkey's shoe broke.  So we had to buy new ones.  While we were looking the pair that he picked happened to have a pair in each of the boys size.  So they all got new shoes.  And they all love how they match. 

And so do I!

I can never get tired of the Utah landscape.  In how many places will you have this much variety?!

Mountains that are sloped.

Flat lands with cliffs.

Lined mountainous cliffs that give you a little glimmer of how the world was.

Amazing pieces of nature that are true testaments of a higher loving power.

It was a good trip.  It was exhausting, but so good.

None of us can wait to go back!

Christmas Eve and Day; Christmas 2013 part 3

We have the tradition of making ourselves in cookie form for Santa, and well, with 7 kids we figured Santa didn't need to have a cookie from each of the 13 adults that were there also.  So the kids every excitedly decorated their cookie as we were making the big Christmas Eve dinner.  All the food was so delicious and being able to spend time like that with everyone was almost the present in enough itself!

Dylan

Monkey

Chunk

Z

Kenna

JellyBean

(poor girl wasn't feeling really well but was trying so hard to tough it out, and was a really trooper through everything!)

Ase

And the finished collection!  I bet Santa was sooooooo excited to see them and had no problem using the sugar high to deliver presents!

Another Christmas tradition we had growing up was a game called 'Don't Eat Pete'  9 napkins/plates are placed, with a treat on each one.  The person who is 'it' leaves the room while the rest of us secretly pick a candy.  The 'it' person comes back and tries to collect as many pieces of candy with out picking up the secret candy.  When they do try to grab that one- you all yell "Don't eat Pete!!!!!" and it becomes another persons turn- you re-fill the napkins and secretly pick a new candy and do it all over again!

The kids love it.

Mr. Manly's first time. 

After that it is the Christmas Jammies opening.  Grams (my mom) makes all the kids jammies every year for Christmas.  The kids have always LOVED their 'grams jammies' and will wear them until the next year when they get their new set!

If these are the faces of happy kids-

I don't know what are!

It is awesome to how much they love that and how much they love their Grams too, mine will snuggle up in their grams-jammies and tell me how much they love their grams for making them, and how much they love the jammies and how they are their favorite jammies ever and how it makes them feel loved.  The fact that she takes the time to make them all- just makes me want to do more, and serve more.  Like she does.

After that we watch Luke 2 and had a family prayer and then tucked everyone in downstairs.

They were all so excited to go to bed it was amazing.  After we tucked the way to excited sugared kids in, Pa stayed downstairs and read them stories and then play his harmonica for them until they fell asleep and calmed down.  Seriously it brings a tear to my eye how much I love that man- and how much he has taught me and how much he loves us.  It warmed my heart seeing him love his grand kids like that too.

Santa knew that we would be traveling so he kept things easy. 

We also had miss placed our stocking so family being as great as they are lent us some.  =)

An upper view of a peaceful Christmas morning.

then the chaos....

Poor Uncle Stevie had a hard time getting up early.  He also wasn't used to all the chaotic excitement, so he fell asleep. 

After things calmed we all got ready to go to a traditional Christmas party.  I have always loved this party and was so excited to see everyone! 

When we walked up this is what greeted us!  This is how you cool the drinks for 50+ people in Utah!  No fridge needed!

We saw a lot of family, and we got reacquainted with a lot of people, but one of  the most important ones there, Pa's mom, aka: Mother.

If I can be just a fraction of who she is and have just an nth degree of her wisdom and spirit, I will be happy.  There has never been a time where I couldn't feel the spirit with her, feel her testimony, know of her love for me, my family, and our Savior.  Her wisdom on plain old regular life things also makes me want to be a better person.

It was so good to see people.  It was so great to see family.  Feel their love and enjoy a special day with them again.  Even though many of us now have families of our own, and were only able to get a few sentences to each other, we still felt their love.

It truly is a magical time of year.

Pre- Christmas Festivites; Christmas 2013 part 2

So we got into Diana's house at like 10:30 pm.  The next day we have the chance to unwind and hang-out before we head to a 'family reunion' of sorts.  We were missing some, so that was sad, but we did thoroughly enjoy each other while we were together!!

We all met at the Brick Oven in to have dinner.  We filled a room all ourselves!

Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

and the rest of table 3

It was so great to be able to all get together and have conversations with those that we rarely get to see or talk to!

Love this sweet boy!  My sister's oldest; Dylan.

I think it was my brother Chris' goal to NOT let anyone get a normal picture of him.  So difficult and I think he takes pride in that fact!

After dinner we all headed over to Granddad and Grandmom's for dessert. 

Steven & Liz

Diana & Matt

Grandmom and Dallin

Grandmom and Diana

Grandad and Dallin

My cousin Shawna and Grandad

We decided since most of us were there, we would give them their Christmas present early, and by golly this was the best one I got of them!  Super sad- but we love them so much.

After awhile (a few days) we ended up am my parents house.  It's so surreal to be home for Christmas after establishing your own traditions.  Seeing how the 2 of us have merged to make it work is awesome, and then the way the kids light up when they see how similar things are.  Pretty special in my eyes. 

Mom has a HUGE collection of Christmas stories, and Liz brought over some of her favorites, we all gathered around to share the stories- it was great getting to see part of Liz like that and watch the magic of Christmas in the kids eyes with the stories.

I love reading to my kids next to the tree. 

At some point as we were getting ready to head to Matt and Diana's for Christmas Eve, Z was getting a bit bored and was feeling ignored. 

His new 'besd buddy uca dallin' played cars with him.  He talked for days about it after we got home.  He loved that his uncle Dallin sat and played with him for awhile.  (I loved it too- kinda made my heart melt watching my son love my brother.  He's a good guy.)

But every time we were in the car for more than 10 minutes this happened.  He was so worn out but loving every second it was amazing.

And you take a picture of one, you can't leave out the others.

Except Claysen- he was asleep against the window and couldn't get to him.

As fast as we moved from one house to the next, we still loved it.  The kids still loved it.  It was so awesome to hear them talk about things that they liked and what they wanted to do next time they came, and how sad they were that it was too cold to do some of the things they remember liking.  

I like that.  It's a piece of my life they are incorporating into their own, and although we may be living far away from where I grew up, they are able to hold a piece of me in their hearts.

Grand Canyon of Fog- Christmas 2013 part 1

This year for Christmas we made the crazy, brave, awesome decision to head to UT to see some family for the holiday season.  What a great idea it turned out be!!

On our way over, we decided to de-tour just a bit and head to see the Grand Canyon.  The drive was really good and rather un-eventful.  The kids played with toys, read books, watched movies, and slept!  It made for a really nice drive!

When we got to the great old GC- this is what we were driving up in. And yes, the roads were as bad as they looked!  We never really hit above 40 mph and that was ok, because it was beautiful!!!  To see such a place just frozen (literally) in time like that, to me was kind of magical.

When we got out of the car to walk around and look at things it was foggy.  We thought, 'sure it's kinda foggy, but the sun will come out and burn it off a bit, and surely it can't be too foggy- we will just wait and look around a bit.'

We were wrong.

But it didn't stop it from being beautiful.  It didn't stop me from catching my breath in wonder at how He created all of this and we are blessed enough to enjoy it.

See foggy.

(I'm glad the kids are getting big enough to get pictures for us).

For a brief (very brief) moment the clouds started to part and we saw some blue sky!

And then it all went away!

I loved this tree.  I love the old bark and the peeling bark and fun shaped of all the branches.

Although it was cold, and by the end of our little walk we were ready to get on the little shuttle and get back in our car, we still enjoyed ourselves.  We did feel bad for all the international tourists.  All the people from China (we saw at least 3 different LARGE groups, and we spoke with a family from Australia, and some people from Denmark, we also heard accents from Italy, Norway, Japan, and Germany.  Plus a few others that we weren't able to recognize).  They spent a LOT of money to see a LOT of fog.

As we waited for the shuttle to take us back to the Visitor's Center the kids made a family of snowmen.

They worked so hard on them!  Super cute! 

Again an old, awesome tree.  This time sporting a Wood Pecker.

On the shuttle- they wanted a picture.

And then without them noticing, I snapped one of my three little men.  And oh what sweet boys they are turning into, and what great friends.  I love seeing them grow together, and love and help each other.  

And this sweet girls smile never really left her face.  She loved and I mean loved every second of the family time and the nature and all of it.

Then there is this man, and without all his careful and thoughtful planning, the trips we take would never be this great and go so smoothly.  He is such a rock for our family.

So we loved it.  Even though really never really could see what we were loving.  We were just glad to be able to experience just a little of it was great, and spending time like that together was the really the priceless part.

After our slow decent we looked and this was what we left.  The forecast said it would all clear up the next day and it would be beautiful weather!

So we are planning a summer trip.

At one point we stopped at a (closed) roadside booth shop place and saw this 'mini grand canyon' as the kids called it.  So we hurry and snapped a picture of it.

Yes, we are missing someone in there, we got in the car and before we had been in there for 5 minutes I turned around and this is what I saw.  Poor kid was tired.

And then not 10 minutes after our 'mini grand canyon' picture,

this is what I found.  They were already exhausted.  

She wasn't far behind, but they all definitely had good naps before we had to stop again.

It was such a good time, and although we didn't really see the Grand Canyon, it was still so awesome.  We all loved it, and it just makes us that much more excited for next time!

We did stop in Beaver UT for dinner at this diner place called El Bambi and it was FANTASTIC!!!  The people were all so friendly and kind!  We will surely be happy to go there again!

It was that night, late that we got into Diana's house.  But it was a good drive with good company.