The One after Christmas

This is the last post mentioning Christmas :(  It was so fun to get to spend so much time with my family- over a week!  That doesn't happen very often.  Here's what we did after Christmas.

The day after Christmas about half of us went up the mountain to play in the snow.  It hadn't actually snowed in a while so it was hard and crusty in most places (unlike the soft flakes that are continuing to fall here in SLC!) but the kids had fun anyway.  I'm not sure what Dillon is doing here but he sure looks funny!  And cute!

I love Kaden's shirt!

"I brought the awesome, what did you bring?"

Bwahahahaha!!

Makayla was trying to make it look like it was snowing.

Hard to do with chunks of ice.

Justin's gonna kill me but hey, if you stick your bootie out when I'm taking pictures it will be posted!!

I think Trevy likes the snow less than I do!

A few of us actually ventured across the creek and hiked the trail at the top of this picture.  We turned around once Ray, Justin and I all ended up carrying children.  

How cute is this?!  Mom has a bucket with toys specifically for the younger ones and Seth used this helicopter as a sippy holder.  So clever!!

A few weeks before Christmas I read a blog where a family played Minute to Win It games at their holiday party.  I thought it would be fun and picked a few I thought the little ones could do.  The first game was Rudolph.  We hung red pom-poms from the garage ceiling and put Vaseline on the kids' noses.  They had to get the pom to stick for 3 seconds.  I think Callie actually did it first and Makayla was able to do it too.  It made for some cute pictures :)

The poms look like I added them using Photoshop or something.  I promise I didn't!  They're really stuck to noses here.  Adorable!

Besides playing games my family likes to... play games.  Sports, that is.  Dad has keys to the church and we utilized the gym a few times.  I gave Makayla some volleyball pointers and the men even let me crash their basketball games.  I think they were just a little hard up to keep the teams even.  We also gathered up all the kids one day and headed over to the church softball fields which are conveniently located around the corner from M&D's house.

We are a big group and this is only half that went.

The slow half :)

I think my parents are wonderful grandparents.  They just love their "grands."  You can find them playing with the kids at any time.  So excited for our future children to have such loving grandparents (on both sides) who will always welcome them with a plate of freshly baked cookies :)

The sad part about setting up the swingset the day before Christmas was that we were missing a few pieces.  Pieces for the tire swing and slide of all things!  The kids kept asking when we were going to put up the slide.  We had to wait for the pieces to come in the mail and it took a couple days but the final setup is awesome!  There's even a rope ladder that hangs just to the left of the slide that wasn't up yet when I took this picture.

Steve's family was the first to have to leave :(  Mom took these adorable Christmas pictures of Beadie before they took off though.  She loves to stick her tongue out!

Merry Christmas!!

Justin and I stayed through Saturday.  Before we left Mom gave me a sewing lesson on my new Bernina :)  It actually took us a while to figure out how to turn it on.  Turned out that the electric socket wasn't working!  Phew!

I got some practice fixing a hole in the arm of one of Justin's shirts and Dad was kind enough to let me practice on his pajama pants.  I think I did a pretty good job and have been thinking of craft projects that involve using my sewing machine.  I love it!!

I'm currently counting the days until graduation because 1- that means I will no longer be a student (ever again!) and 2- I get to see my family again.  Come on May!!

The One with Christmas Cookies

After eating arroz chaufa on Christmas Eve, we helped the kids decorate cookies.  Wendy had the great idea to bake them beforehand and just have the kids "help" by each decorating one cookie for themselves and one for Santa.  Here are their beautiful creations:

Kaden

Callie- maybe a little overboard with the green sprinkles :)

Lynlie

Trevy

Braylon

Noah

Dillon

Makayla

Landon

Maddie

Jaydon

Hunter

The next day was finally Christmas!!

How adorable is Timmy?!!!

And it was crazy!  26 people = a crapload of gifts and boxes and wrapping paper.  Check out the tree with all the stockings lined up.  I helped Wendy set up those for her 5 kiddos on the left and the stockings in front are for Steve and Heather's brood.  Not sure where Amy's kids' stockings were but that is Justin's lonely stocking off to the right.

 

A few years ago we played Pass the Pigs with some friends and Justin loved it.  I found it at the bookstore on campus and he was so excited!  The little nephews loved rolling the pigs even if they didn't get the point of the game.  Or win.  

Justin also got this hilarious Holiday Pooper in his stocking.  I saw it randomly at Joann's one day and knew it would be a perfect stocking stuffer.  I was right :)

Funny sidenote- when Justin and I first walked into Mom and Dad's house there were multiple stockings hanging on the wall.  Those for the "original 8" (my parents and their 6 kids) and the older grandkids have embroidered names.  James (Wendy's husband), who has been in the family for a good while now, also has an embroidered name and I think Ray (Amy's husband) does too.  But we have had a lot of recent additions, including Justin, who was upset that he only had a "temporary" name on his stocking!  So temporary that it even came off while he was looking inside.  Super funny!

 More morning madness:

 

 

Not sure what secret Landon was telling Wendy but it sure looks cute!

These puzzle boxes that you can put cash in were a big trend this year.  Kaden got a couple himself.

Also a big hit with the boys (big and little) were remote controlled cars.  Landon got this cool dump truck and Timmy got an adorable little Disney car with Donald Duck as the driver.  I don't have a picture of that one (darn it) but I so wish I did because it was adorable!  I took a turn with it myself and thought it was so fun I couldn't quit laughing the whole time I was driving it :)  Mostly because I was making Donald drive in circles underneath everyone's feet.

 

Proof that I'm not the only one in the family who likes to read, or be read to.

Justin recently lost his Nike gym bag so I got him an upgraded one for Christmas.

 

James and Wendy with the family subway hanging I made them.  She was excited I cut Oregon out correctly.  Obviously the names of all seven current family members are on there plus 2001, the year J&W got married.  I left a lot of space just in case any more names need to be added in the future so I filled it in with AZ and OR (the two states they've lived in), some hearts, the outline of the Mesa temple (where they were married) and (I thought this would be funny) a tennis racquet and ball!  I found them on one of my Cricut cartridges and thought it would fill in that odd blank space nicely.

What a great picture of me!  Justin really had me going with this gift, as you can tell by my expression.

 

Here's what it looked like when Justin gave it to me.  He added multiple newspaper pages to form a chicken and then wrapped that.  The actual gift was a Piano Guys CD!  That man cracks me up :)

 

My big gift was a sewing machine!!  Drop enough hints starting in May and you'll get what you want for Christmas :)  It will be so nice not to have to drive down to Grandma's when I want to sew something and now I don't have to mend clothes by hand!  Justin may even get lucky and I'll embroider his name on a stocking!  This was especially meaningful because I mentioned the machine as a Christmas gift last October when my mom and Aunt Teresa were up visiting Grandma Sabol.  Mom and I then went into another room and Justin worked out buying Teresa's machine.  Sneaky sneakerson!!  It's a Bernina and runs like a dream!! 

Some people were a little exuberant in thanking others for gifts.  Get a room!

Or maybe I shouldn't talk.  This is how excited I was when Justin brought out the Bernina.

Mom told me before Christmas that she didn't get us kids anything.  Of course, she lied.  Mom is great at giving meaningful, useful  gifts.  The only thing she didn't do was wrap them because each married couple in the family got a pretty darn big gift.  First, she had Justin and I cover our eyes.

Then she and Dad brought out our gift: a new Dutch oven and cast iron camping cookware!  Woot!

Then Steve and Heather closed their eyes and M&D brought out the quilt Mom has been working on for them.

 So pretty!!

Next was James and Wendy.

Who also got some camping gear: chairs for (almost) the whole family.

Wyatt was super excited :)

And finally, Ray and Amy.

M&D took a woodshop class and built two huge picture frames to match the three like these Amy already has filled with pictures of Kaden, Porter and Makayla.  She hasn't been able to find them again but now she has one each for Dillon and Seth.

Dave and Hunter came up later and Hunter had a much quieter time opening his gifts than his cousins.

By afternoon things had calmed down and most people had dispersed to play with their new electronics or continue the swinging marathon from the day before.