Christmas Vacation in Utah

I know the last post was about moving on to 2014, but I got ahead of myself. I’ve got to cover Christmas break first!

T.J. and I flew separately since he had to work through the Friday before Christmas and then was back at work on the 2nd. I just found the cheapest flights I could find, so I stayed for about two and a half weeks in Utah.

We spent most of our time with T.J.’s parents, his siblings and their cute families. The cousins all played together so well (excluding when Eva bit Holly and constantly stole toys from the other kids… we probably need to get Eva on more play dates…). It was fun to see their relationships grow as they played together. Eva was pretty much smitten with Cohen and by the end of the trip, she was already missing her playmate Holly, who had left to New Mexico.

I took a ton of photos-so I thought the best way to put them on the blog is just a bunch of collages so you’re not scrolling down forever:

Eva loved the snow! She could have played out there everyday. She called “snowballs”-“shoe balls.” So that was adorable.

The Sunday before Christmas, we went to T.J.’s grandma’s house for dinner. The kids reenacted the Nativity and the little girls were angels. Quite a crowd, as you can see.

On Christmas Eve, I wanted to get a nice picture of Eva in her festive outfit in front of the tree. Easier said than done. That girl would not give me a smile. So, the emo pose will have to do this year. We then went to T.J.’s aunt Pam’s house for dinner that night and Eva had a blast playing with their toys.

More scenes from Christmas Eve. The top center picture is in the middle of our Nativity. Not joking. I don’t know what was going on with Cohen and Josh. But sweet Haven was a perfect baby Jesus. We tried to take a picture of all the kids in their matching PJs, but that was a disaster (enter picture number one), so we decided to all get in the picture with the kids instead.

Scenes from Christmas morning. T.J.’s brother and his kids were there as well for Christmas morning. Santa brought Holly a tricycle and it was the first thing Eva saw.

“A BIKE!” Eva said, so excitingly!

Fortunately, we were able to distract her from the bike with her Santa presents, which was a new doll and baby portacrib. Santa also brought a princess dress, dress up heals, and some other fun treats in the stocking.

On Christmas day, the guys took the kids sledding in the backyard and then we played Pass the Parcel. Lots of fun games and fun memories. And check out my cute husband wearing a hat given to him by his old high school-he rebranded their logo for them last year… you can see his caveman on the hat and scarf!

Wow. That’s a lot of instagrams. I may have am obsession. I’ll spare the deets and just run through it quickly:
Eva wearing her butterfly wings, a new haircut, Cafe Rio, setting up Santa presents, lots of time-outs
Cocoa Bean cupcake, decorated Christmas trees, rolling through WalMart, Happy New Year!, cutie pie Eva
Playing with gam’s doll house, the grandkids love grandma, church dress for Christmas service, new kicks from grandma, Eva and Cohen
Family night at the outlets, twinsies, Christmas Eve at the Mahlers, Sitting in the new crib, besties/kissing cousins

I also got to see a lot of friends while I was in town:
Cocoa Bean with my old coworker, shopping and a movie with Laura, a movie with Danica, Cafe Rio with old friends from Provo Ward, Met Baby Maggie for the first time, Target with Erin!

We had such a great trip and loved seeing all of our friends and family again! Thanks to everyone who made it such a memorable holiday!