Christmas....finally

Well, it's April so I figured, why not do a Christmas post? :) I know, many have probably given up on us and I don't blame you. It's been a wild few months, but I'm determined to keep this family journal going so I can get that fun book all printed up and put on my shelf for my family. It's going to take time to catch up and to check in on all of you, but here we go....

The pictures are all mixed up...but if I start over now, I probably won't get back to it. Here are some fun pictures of Christmas in Utah. Our trip was quite eventful....I stayed up all night working on our accounting for the company because we had an appt with our CPA in Utah and getting things finished up and filed for work but figured I could sleep all the way to Utah so no problem. I went to bed at 6:00 and got back up at 7:30 and started packing us up and kept working as I did so but knowing that once we got on the road, I could relax. Well, Cody was getting us loaded and was working on getting us a cargo carrier and came home and his face was just chalk white. He said he didn't feel good and went upstairs to laid down for a second and then threw up. He had this horrible flu that had been going around and it was absolutely perfect timing. So, I promptly took the energy drink out of the fridge that I had gotten for him and put it in the cupholder in the car and we headed out....about 4 hours later than we had planned. We decided to go the back way to take off some time since we were already late and of course, I was driving and drinking my energy drink. Well, Cody told me to watch out for a couple of landmarks as we went through the beautiful scenic route of Yucca Valley and told me the towns to watch for. Yeah, I missed one of them and when Cody woke up, he asked where we were and we were almost to Sussex?? I was just driving along and he had forgotten to mention how tiny the sign was that I was watching for. Yeah, missed it! We drove about 45 min to an hour out of our way so we headed back and finally caught back up to the right road and kept going.

Well, we got to Primm and I bought another energy drink and started on that. We were going straight through so I figured I'd need a little somethin', somethin'. We stopped in Mesquite because Avery was starting to freak out and stand up in her carseat. We got her out for a minute and took a little break and then forced her back in her carseat while she was screaming and went on our merry way. It was raining pretty hard but I was wide awake and ready to go. We got just outside of Cedar City and Avery had been crying in some form or another since Mesquite and Cody had been miserable all day as he struggled to get comfortable with a fever and aches and that wasn't happening and as we drove into snow, cars were sliding off the road and we were down to around 30 mph, Cody says, "let's just stop." I look at him with my big, wide artificially energized eyes and said, "I'm good to keep going, let's keep going" and Cody looks at everyone else and they all kind of nod and he says, "let's stop." Our poor cousin, Brock was with us and had been sitting by Avery all this time and I don't know how loud his IPod was at this point, but he looked a little weary too. We stopped in Cedar City and got a hotel and I laid and looked at the ceiling until 4:30 in the morning because I was prepared to drive straight through with my energy drinks.

We got up the next morning at 7:00 and got ready to go and headed out again. I drove for a while until Cody thought he could finally take over when we were 2 hours from home. After 4 hours of sleep in 2 days, I still couldn't relax but when we finally made it to my dad's house...I couldn't have been happier. It's a good thing it was worth it when we got there, which of course we knew it would be, but it was quite a trip! There's actually more to the story, but I won't take the time to write it down right now.....let's just say HO, HO, HO. :)

My niece made these antlers....aren't they funny?

Grandpa and Grandma took such good care of us. This is Christmas morning and we had a delicious breakfast and had such a fun day! It was great to be around family and cousins for Christmas in the snow. I am getting used to lights on palm trees, but not quite the same as a white Christmas.

She loves her babies and carried them around all morning.

Carson's new bike

This has to be my ultimate favorite picture of the holidays. You can totally tell how excited Bailey was that Brittany got a cell phone. Her expression is priceless!! "But that's not fair" was not far behind this expression, but it was so funny to look back on the camera and see this picture. Brittany was happy! :)

Christmas Morning! Carson is still yawning....

I love this picture....we had our family party on Christmas Eve this year and all of the grandkids gathered around my dad while he read about Jesus' birth from The Bible. They all sat down and listened....it was so sweet the way they looked up at him. We do this at our house too, but it's totally different coming from Grandpa.

Love this! No one had a baby this year, so we had to use the Fisher Price newborn. It did the job and I love how serious Carson was about his role.

Money! I do the same thing.... :)

We always have homemade soups with bread bowls and munchies....I love this dinner. It's perfect for the cold outside and I love my sister's Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup with homemade noodles. I tried to make it once, wasn't the same.

Bailey loved this gift! It's an earring holder that my niece made for her.

Brit & Jacey are inseparable when we're in Utah. They're only a few months apart and are so cute together. They got matching blankets and slippers....my kids really miss their cousins.

Avery had a really fun Christmas. I love the fact that she just loves whatever she gets and even if we wrapped up her sippy cup, she would love it and carry it around. She got the hang of unwrapping and loved everything she got.

These are Carson's buddies....cousins Braden and Ty. He can't get enough of either one of them and they are so cute together.

Avery has never been in the snow so this was a whole new thing for her. We had Carson's old coat and we bundled her up and she loved it!

Grandpa Phil & Grandma Debbie give all of the grandkids pajamas and it was so fun to be together this year. I love this picture. They take one every year and I'm so glad we got to be in it. We missed Jerry & Kim, Taylor & Hayden so it's missing 2 of the kids, but what a cute group of kids!