Christmas Break

On December 23rd the John extended family started arriving. Matt came to stay at our house from BYU, my parents flew in from Boston, and the Salazars flew from Detroit. The Salazars were trying to balance seeing a ton of different family the whole time so they were in and out a lot, but my girls put them to good use. 

 The cutest bedtime scene.

I had visions of all this fun stuff we'd fit in with my parents, but it ended up being a quiet visit. My girls weren't excited about going out to do stuff and my mom was sick, so we were homebodies much of the time. 

 On Christmas Eve we had a delicious dinner with ham, funeral potatoes, rolls, etc.

Then we watched Mr. Krueger's Christmas and a short video on the birth of Christ. We opted out of reading it from the scriptures because Sadie is the only one who sits still during scripture reading. 

 The girls carefully and excitedly laid out their stockings in the front room...and Santa came! Elise got a fold up castle and dragon costume, Sadie got a gymnastics mat and 2 leotards, and Millie got a baby high chair, crib and stroller set.

 One of my favorite pictures every year is the girls waiting at the top of the stairs. 

We gave the girls a 7:30 present opening time which meant we had to wake up Millie. She was very confused for the first 15 minutes of present opening. She finally got off Daniel's lap and started to get excited about her presents. Sadie and Elise still opened all her presents for her because she didn't care much about opening them. She wanted them after they were open.

I was super excited to give this framed print to my mom. Me and 4 of my siblings went together on it. It is so hard to get presents for parents so I was looking forward to giving my mom something she wouldn't be expecting. I stressed out about picking the frame and matte, but it turned out beautifully. The picture is titled "I got it from her and she got it from her". Basically a comment on generations of women. I love Caitlyn Connolly's work so much. Daniel was smart and bought me one of her sketches for Christmas. It is called "growing up girls" and I relate to it for obvious reasons. I haven't framed it yet. I don't know how I want to do it. Help!

The other thing we woke up to on Christmas was a ton of snow. The biggest snow storm I have seen in Utah in a long time. Daniel spent a couple hours shoveling our whole big driveway. 

 

One of the Christmas highlights was this huge playhouse from Nana and Papa. I have actually been looking to buy one of these for a couple of years. They are the biggest plastic playhouses you can buy. Full price they are around $600, but one of our neighbors happened to be selling theirs in December so I snatched it up. Lou was with me when I went to check it out and I told her we were buying it for her cousin Addy. She completely believed it and told me Addy was going to love it. We will move it outside in the spring because it is way too big for our basement if we want to keep other toys in that room as well. 

Another exciting present for the girls was Build-A-Bear gift cards from Daniel's aunt and uncle. We had never been there so we thought it would be a fun activity to do with my parents. Well, it turns out December 26 is not a great day for visiting Build-A-Bear. The line took almost an hour, but since we had 4 adults it wasn't bad. I waited in line while the girls checked out other stuff in the mall. 

The girls picked out their animal "skins" (worst term ever). Sadie had a hard time choosing but she went with the special edition Elsa bear. Lou picked out 2 characters from How to Train Your Dragon. The girls helped pick out a dog for Millie since she loves real ones so much.

So after we got our skins we waited in line for the stuffing machines. You can see Millie's dog being stuffed above. At this stage you put a fabric heart inside. The employee had Sadie and Elise kiss the hearts to breathe life into them and then stick it on their forehead to make a wish and then put it inside the stuffed animal before it was sewn up. It was very cute. Elise was enthralled with every step. Since Sadie only picked out one animal I let her pick out 2 outfits for her Elsa bear. 

 All in all, even with the long line the girls thought the whole thing was magical and they both still sleep with their new animals. Millie is terrified of the dog. I think the fact that it is fake freaks her out.

That night the men all went to dinner and the Jazz-Clippers game while the women (me, Hillary and my mom) went to dinner and shopping. We ended up talking a lot and hardly getting any shopping in, but it was very fun. 

Sunday was spent at church, taking naps and eating delicious food mostly prepared by my dad.

 Millie insisted on lots of books from any adult who was sitting near her. 

 On Monday the 28th we spent the day visiting my grandparents. First up with a visit to my Grandma John. No trip to see Grandma is complete without a huge meal so we stuffed ourselves with a delicious lunch. I had to keep my eye on Camille the entire team since Grandma's apartment is full of beautiful, breakable items. After that visit we went to my maternal grandfather Bobpa's house in Salt Lake. The girls were excited to play in his basement toy room again. We also visited with my uncle D and his partner George. George and I had somehow managed to avoid meeting each other in recent years so it was good to finally get to talk to him.

That night Hill and Ben stayed with us. We stayed up entirely too late eating and watching Making a Murderer. 

My girls just love those Salazars. And it's easy to see why. They play with them constantly. 

While my parents stayed in SLC for a few days we hung out with the Proffitt family. Margaret brought her 2 youngest kids to my house one morning and then we met up at Lowe's Xtreme Airsports that afternoon, which again, was packed. I guess maybe everything kid-related is packed during Christmas break. It was slightly overwhelming, but fun. The younger kid area wasn't too crowded.

I like that Millie stayed on this tiny slide for much of the visit. Probably perfect for her.

Sadie did the trapeze several times, but I couldn't get her to catch it in the air like she has in the past. 

After that we couldn't bear to part with the Proffitts so we went to Chick-fil-a for dinner and more playing. Lou refused to be in the kid picture. Here are 6 of the 7 kiddos. My kids match up with Margaret's youngest 3 kids. 

Sometimes I hate getting together with good friends who live far away because it makes me sad. It was so fun to talk with Margaret and Clark for a while. We hadn't seen Clark since he fell off a cliff (literally). We decided they should just move to Utah.

Another major adult activity during my parent's visit was this 2,000 piece puzzle of Neuschwanstein Castle, which my parents are going to see in person this summer on a trip to Germany. It was incredibly difficult and we didn't end up finishing it. Another problem with it was we had to keep it in the office with the doors shut during the day so Millie couldn't get to it. We could only bring it out at night, although some of us isolated ourselves in the office during the daytime hours to work on it. It is still sitting in my office 2 weeks later in the exact same state. I keep telling myself I will finish it.

Several days after Christmas we received the Christmas pj's Mimi handmade for the girls, complete with personalized tops. SO adorable. The USPS lost them for a few days so they didn't arrive in time for Christmas, but I made the girls recreate a Christmas morning photo before bed the night we got them. 

On New Years Eve we went to Daniel's game, which they won, and then went to dinner at Ruby River. The kids were very well behaved and the adults barely made it to midnight.
It was a fun Christmas. We haven't had visitors at Christmastime since Sadie and Elise were really young. We didn't do a whole lot, but it was great to visit with family.

Let's go, 2016! I look forward to seeing what happens this year.