Christmas!

So after our Vegas trip we came home to Trevor at our house!! He'd arrived a couple days before we got back! It was awesome having him to celebrate Christmas with us.

Christmas Sunday

Sunday night we went to Temple Square that night to see the lights and see Ashley's choir sing Christmas carols- they were so good. It was fun.
 

Tuesday afternoon we went to Ashley and EJ's house and it was so dreamy. I'm in love with Midway anyway but it happened to be snowing so the view out there window with the Christmas tree in the corner and just being together was about as Christmas-magical as you could get. We had pizza and treats. Each child was doing what they wanted and the adults could talk or watch the basketball game on tv and relax. It was so great.


So on Wednesday we thought this Christmas activity was going to be soo magical and Christmas-perfect and the best thing ever and turned out to be the worst thing ever. We'd heard about the Seven Peaks Waterpark turned to the North Pole and it seemed like it would be so fun and like a total winter wonderland (Christmas lights, visit/take pictures with Santa & Mrs. Claus, hot chocolate station, Christmas craft station, sledding rides= ride tubes down the water/ice slides, train ride, watch Christmas movies, etc.) and if you have a Seven Peaks pass you get in for free! We remembered to go the last day it was open, bundled up, and went and oh my, there were soooo many people there, which makes sense since it was basically free (in retrospect I WISH it cost money to go so it would weed people out and hopefully not as many would go). Seven Peaks should've set a limit of how many people they let in because with that many people the lines for every single thing were about 2 hours long... super effective and enjoyable... :-/ It was faaarrrreeeeeeezzzziiiinnnnggg. Soooo cold!! Like unbearable. Every body part was numb within minutes. And snowy/muddy/wet. We waited in line for the train for an hour and a half (after so long we felt like we'd waited long enough we had to get on that train and make it worth it). The kids were all crying, the adults were trying to laugh to keep from crying, we were all miserable. The train ride was lame, the best part was that the ride took us to a warm room where they gave us chocolate chip cookies and let us warm up for a few minutes. We went home after that. Decided to go to Chick-fil-A to reward ourselves and do something fun to make up for such a flop. Why did no one tell us how horrible it was?! ;-)

Christmas Eve was a party to say the least :-). The day started off with Jack and Melinda coming over to make Santa balls and decorate sugar cookies!

Melinda is such a special friend of our family's. It's been so fun living here in Provo near her to get to know her better and develop our friendship. She is incredibly genuine and thoughtful and makes you feel so loved. She is so authentic and inspires me. I've been really grateful to have her in my life. Her love, support, and example have meant so much. She's one of our "people" and we are lucky for that.

I made 2 batches of rice pudding during the day for later that night.

Time for Santa Balls!  

Santa left a special delivery of Christmas pjs on our front porch just in time for bed!

Santa came!

Stockings on our bed

Let's see what Santa brought! 

Jack is also a really special friend of our family's and it's been fun getting to know him better since moving here to Provo. He's a great friend, he's incredibly kind, thoughtful, loving, helpful, fun, and it was really fun having him around so much the week of Christmas. We learned a few things about him: he's the MASTER at decorating sugar cookies, building castles out of blocks, and the game Telestrations (so I've gathered he's totally artistic), he loves shawl-neck sweaters and puzzles, and he's a total baby/child whisperer- they love him and he is so great with them. And he's playing Joseph in Joseph & the Technicolor Dreamcoat playing at Hale Centre Theatre in Orem starting February 19th!

For about 2 months straight before Christmas Emma talked a ton about how much she wanted an Ariel mermaid tail, a Cinderella dress, and Elsa gloves/crown. It was pretty fun to see all of her princess dreams come true.

The day after Christmas, Brandon and I took Josh and Emma to a Utah Jazz game. It was a fun little adventure.

It was sooo awesome having Trevor here for Christmas. We had so much fun together. We played games, cooked (Trev made me delicious brussel sprouts- life changing), ate goodies, talked, had dance parties, etc.  It's been awhile since we've done Christmas with extended family. It was such a special Christmas I'll never forget.

A few days after Christmas we drove the 6-hour drive to Brandon's parents house in Casper, Wyoming to spend the rest of our winter break there. The kids had a blast doing a super fun activity every single day (ice skating, swimming, bounce place, seeing a movie in the theater, McD's play place, run around the church gym, etc.), and then playing with their cousins the rest of the time.

We left Saturday morning to drive back home. What a fun-filled Winter Break!