Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Christmas Joys!

Get ready for picture overload! I always forget to take pictures of our trips, so this time I actually did an OK job of snapping some shots of our favorite moments.

We spent Christmas with Josh's family in Provo, UT. Everyone was there, so we had a full house every day and we had entirely too much fun.

Our trip started out with a 14 hour drive. Ugh! The boys actually did pretty good- Logan pulled this funny face for the picture.








Logan and Shaffer are such lucky boys- they have 2 cousins, Jax & Paityn who are all around the same age (10 and 8 months)! Logan and Jax had a good time walking together and occasionally bumping into each other.






My niece Taylor was in love with Logan and Shaffer, and boy howdy was she cute with them. I put Shaffer on the floor to change his diaper and walked away to get something and came back to Taylor trying to keep him happy. I'm gonna miss that girl.












Christmas Eve. We are starting a tradition (like most families) of new PJ's for Christmas. We got the boys these ones and they were stinkin' cute.

We also started a new tradition of a "Men's Cook-off"! Josh isn't exactly known for his cooking (he just doesn't do it), so while all the other guys were getting assignments of which desserts to make, Josh

got told he'd be doing the frosting of the cookies. He was a bit insulted, so to prove them wrong he made these homemade oreos. The women were the judges, and low and behold Josh ended up winning! It was perhaps my favorite part of the whole Christmas break.

Christmas morning and day were a blast. Logan and Shaffer clearly had no clue what Christmas meant, so the whole present opening thing didn't go over so well, but Logan has since enjoyed playing with his toys. And as for Shaffer....well....he still doesn't care too much!






Logan has a love/hate relationship with vacuums. He is obsessed with them and follows it around whenever it is on, but the second it turns to face him he runs away. Uncle Jon (Josh's sisters husband) was nice enough to give Logan the thrill of pushing the vacuum. The best present of all!

Shaffer officially started smiling this week and I just can't get enough. I don't know how to explain it exactly but I feel that much more in love and that much more attached to my little boy- all because of a smile! Awww....my litte Mr. Cutey Cute Cuteness.


Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of everything. We also got to go to Thanksgiving Point to see the lights; played lots of games; went for a couple of runs; ate about 10 lbs. of M&M's, cookies & about 5 loaves of the softest, most delicious white bread (Grandma Sicamore). To good to be true.

















And then came the dreaded time to drive back home. The boys actually did OK (Who am I kidding? I'll let the picture of Shaffer tell it all), but it took us 16 awful, cramped, stressful, snow and ice storm hours. No me gusta.
We read Llama Llama Red Pajama about 15 times; heard Ruloph the Red Nose Reindeer close to 50 times; ate fast food twice (UGH!), and changed 1 big blow out and 5 other wet and poopy diapers. But the worst part by far was the snow. I HATE driving in the snow- I turn into this paranoid sissy and have terrible visions of really bad things happening. Really, I HATE the snow. Whenever we stopped we let Logan our to trample around in the van. He was obsessed with the hazard light button. He loved to be up in front. He learned how to honk the horn and would muster all his strength to hear it again.

So, even though we spent 30 hours in a car driving to and from Utah, it was well worth it to see everyone. I'm so grateful for family.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

2 comments:

Rachel said...

I'm glad it was all well worth it... Nothing can beat good family and memories. And, aren't you glad you had your van to change those diapers in rather than a germy public restroom! You look beautiful in all your pics and like the happiest mama ever! I hate the snow too!

The Constantines said...

Oh my word! These pictures are so precious! They melt my heart. I so wish you could have come home... sigh.... Think of all the fun we could have had running together, playing, laughing (picture in your mind merrily running through grass fields ;) haha), and well, you could have taken a nap or two while I played with the boys... Alright, maybe I am just trying to sell you on all of those things because that's what I REALLY want!! Love you lots and am so happy to at least see pictures of the Christmas joys!