Christmas

Christmas morning!

She must have Candy! That is the only time she smiles this big:)

I remember laying under the Christmas tree with my dad looking at the lights when I was a little girl.

Grandma Great Jones and Parker.

Broden's present from Santa.

The boys under the tree.

Christmas dinner

Adults and Broden at Christmas dinner.

Christmas eve program. My mom made up the program when she was 16, just after she joined the church. It is on the big paper my brother is holding. She told us it didn't go over very well with her family when she was 16 because they didn't know the songs very well and she couldn't play the piano very well. Hopefully this was an improvement. Cindy is good at playing the piano and I think we knew all the songs, at least the first verse. Alissa thought it was heaven to sing songs with all of us.

Remi and Broden were both so excited to give their presents to eachother. Remi wanted to make everyone corn bags. She got to make one with me at mutual last year and Broden has wanted one ever since. So she helped me make them for Broden, Alissa, Parker and Dad.

Broden really wanted to make Remi and Alissa clothes for their dogs. So we used some of my old pajamas and made them into pajamas for the dogs and matching pj's for the girls. I tried making some for Broden and his dog the day before we left, but I had my nephew try them on and I was pretty sure they wouldn't fit Broden. Christmas eve the kids were getting ready to sit in the hot tub with dad and Broden came over to me and whispered,"I really want pajamas that match dot(his stuffed dog)." I had all the stuff, the dog ones just weren't done yet. So while they were in the hot tub I hurried down to my moms sewing machine and finished the dog ones. Broden was so excited! His were really tight but he didn't mind. They only lasted one day though, then they got a huge hole in the crotch. Oh well, at least he got them for a day. I'll have to make another pair.

 

My dad actually has matching pants that Cindy and I made him for Father's day a couple years ago. I had the extra material at my house to use for Broden's pants.

Papa and Parker. Papa is my mom's dad.

Santa brought us a WII and we used some of our Christmas money to get WII fit plus. We have fun playing it together.

 For Christmas this year we got to drive home to Idaho. We left the Friday before Christmas at about 3:00pm and started driving. The roads were great, but we knew there was a storm coming so we drove as far as we could. The kids fell asleep around 8, so we wanted to keep driving on good roads and in a quiet car. It was awesome! Then we got to our hotel room at 2:00am in Evanston, Wy. The kids thought they had slept for the night and were ready to play and have breakfast. Blake and I were exhausted. We finally got them to calm down and lay in bed at about 3:30am. Then our "neighbors" came home. They were so noisy! Our kids all got up again. Blake and I tried to sleep a little and just let the kids play, but at about 4:45am our room started filling with smoke. Not just any smoke, pot smoke. It was disgusting. I tried to ignore it, but couldn't. So we called the front desk and told them. They said they would call the room and ask them to be quiet. They were quiet after that, but the smell just got worse. So at 5:00am I called the front desk and told them we wanted our money back and we were leaving. They told us we could get $10 off. We packed up in the car and Blake went to the front desk and talked to them. They ended up giving us all our money back.

So at 5:30 am we were on the road again, headed to SLC to visit Blake's Grandma, Grandma Webb. The roads were really bad the whole way there. It was just supposed to take an hour, but took closer to an hour and a half or 2 hours. We got to her house at like 8, and she wasn't expecting us until 9. We called and no one answered so we figured she was either in the bathroom or still sleeping. At 8:45 she realized we were there and let us in. We had a fun visit with her, then left around 11, to make it to Cindy's (my sister) basketball game at 3:00pm in Idaho Falls. As soon as we got past Ogden the roads were really bad. There were like 13 cars off the road in the first mile of slick roads. Then we only saw 1 more car off the road all the way to IF. When we were leaving Salt Lake I called my brothers to tell them we were headed to Idaho Falls instead of staying all day in SLC so we could see temple square that night they told us they were just driving through SLC too. They were just a couple miles behind us. Just before Pocatello we heard honking and looked over and they were next to us, Eric was hanging out the sunroof and Tyler was driving. They were both waving like crazy. Our kids were SOOOO excited. Broden said, "LOOOOK its ERIC!" Then he said, "Where is uncle Eric going?" I thought that was hilarious. I think They sat backwards all the way to Blackfoot waving at Eric and Tyler. Then in Blackfoot Blake couldn't stay awake any longer so he jumped in with Tyler and Eric drove our car.

Our week and a half in Idaho Falls was pure fun and games. We stayed with my sister Kristi in their nice large home they built. They have a guest bedroom in the basement with its own bathroom. She also has 5 kids, so our kids had a blast. Blake and I actually got to sleep in a little in the mornings because the kids would just play together and her oldest son, Grant would get them breakfast. We rotated where we would hang out during the day and eat meals at night, so we got to spend time with everyone. We played speed uno, smurf, a new pool game my brothers taught us, sat in the hot tub, watched basketball, played basketball and volleyball, watched movies, ate, and ate and ate, partied and had a blast!

Our drive home was much less eventful. The roads were icy all the way through Wyoming, but fine once we hit Nebraska. We just took it slow and the kids did awesome! It was so much fun seeing all the fam over the break, but we might stay home next year. We'll see where home is:)