Christmas in Utah

We surprised my family by showing up early Christmas Morning in Utah. We didn't even tell our kids where we were going, so when they fell asleep on Christmas Eve in the car "looking at Christmas lights" and woke up in Utah, they were extremely excited! We ran into snow for about the last 3 hours, so it took a little longer than expected, but it was so fun to see our family for a few days and play in snow - since our kids hardly know what it is! At one point during the drive, when it was snowing, Blake woke up, looked out his window, and said, "Um...we need to wash our car. We're getting like...sand...or something? on our car. What is this stuff? Are we in a dust storm?" Oh, these Arizona kids. 

 This was Lucy the entire time...into EVERYTHING. Grandma's house has a lot more cool stuff to explore than ours does. 

The highlight of our trip was going sledding in the fresh-powdered mountains. It was so beautiful in the canyon, and our sledding spot was perfect. 

While making the last turn, my parents' car got stuck, and had to be pushed out. 

 My mom is not a snow person, and wanted to stay in the car. Lance carried her out so she would join us, haha. 

Once we had packed in enough sledding, snowboarding, and snowball fights we came home and celebrated Lucy's 1st birthday. She was very dainty with her cake and preferred tasting the little frosting flowers instead of devouring the cake. I can't believe this girl is one!!!

Pre-Christmas

Despite three kids getting a week-long stomach flu during December, we were actually able to make it out and do some Christmas activities! This year the 2nd grade had their Christmas program outside at night before the Winter Carnival. They did a skit called, "The Littlest Reindeer," and it was really cute.

Our ward had it's Christmas Party as a breakfast this year, and the primary kids sang a few songs for part of the program. 

The same night was Lance's work party out at Dr. Buhrow's house in Fountain Hills. When people say Arizona is beautiful, THIS is exactly what they're talking about. There is something about a desert landscape (especially during a rainstorm) that is so amazing! We might be convinced to stay in Arizona if we could look off our porch and have this view every day!

Our kids LOVE the resident parties, because there is always so much to do. This year Dr. Buhrow's wife Suzanne got little gingerbread houses for all of them to build/decorate. Here is Addi modeling the secret opening bookcase. 

Carlton and Lindsey moved here a few months ago when Carlton started his first year of residency. We love hanging out with the Taylors, and they have a Lucy about the same age as our Lucy!

Our kids love the tradition of sleeping under the tree during Christmas Vacation. This year, they convinced me that Lucy needed to sleep with them too. 

We went to see the lights at the Mesa Temple grounds a few days before Christmas. At this point, I had had kids throwing up for 12 days consecutively, so we were all a bit desperate to get out and do something besides laying down inside. We decided to walk around at the lights at least for a little bit. If you look carefully at the pictures with the stroller in them you can see the white mixing bowl we brought on top of the stroller just in case anyone had to throw up. This year's flu hit us hard!

Christmas Eve we woke up and went on a family bike ride to the duck pond. It was more of a pigeon pond this time, but we did find a few ducks to feed!

Lucy was extremely interested in the pigeons so Lance kept trying to get them to come closer. We discovered in the process that Lucy had an unreal amount of drool. And it was gross. 

We went home and made Christmas Eve dinner, and Lance and I made the last-minute decision to drive up to Utah for the last few days he had off. We packed in about forty minutes, and took off!
(to be continued...)