Christmas in Idaho and Utah

Our family had such a great Christmas vacation this year. We were so blessed to be able to find an affordable direct flight to Salt Lake City, and spent our ten days between Idaho Falls and Utah Valley. 

Zach has been long awaiting a white Christmas. He has been obsessed with Frosty and couldn't wait to get his hands on some snow to see if he could build a snowman that would come alive.

We arrived in Utah to find a light dusting of snow, but not quite enough to roll into any sort of ball. 

This is just outside of Missy's house. Classic!! Plenty of bare footprints in the snow!!

 We started off with a fancy dinner made mostly by Adam and decorated by Meadow. It was both lovely and delicious!

 I was so glad for my kids to get to play with their cousins. We have friends over every now and then, but it's pretty quiet at our house for the most part, so they love being in the middle of all those people!

 

 Zoey gets so excited to see other babies. This is Missy's baby, Michael Foster. He was a little surprised that she was so forward! 

 The gang.

 The spread.

 Teething Faith was chomping on the ice and loving it!

 Missy and Adam

 We usually stay at the Partridges since they have so much room and so hospitably invite us. Seriously, they  had brand new, gorgeous bedding and even leave mints on the pillows!

We trekked up to Idaho Falls, where it was snowing a bit. We got about 3 inches of powder, but we added some water to make our snowmen!

 Zoey with Grandma Nettie

 Roger sporting a regal-looking beard.

 So fun to plow the driveway in style!

 Snow angels

 Our tiny snowman family. Zach sang "Frosty" 3 times trying to kick these guys into action. He's so cute!

 Grandpa Mike truly adores his grandchildren, and they love their grandpa!

 She loves to stand on her tiptoes! I can't believe they don't cramp up! Future ballerina here! 

 Nana got some snuggle time in too!

 Great Grandma Winder

My sweet baby brother.

 Shopping with my Momma. She usually saves hers for December 23 or 24!

 Chillin' with Gramps and the cool bendy toy he gave Zach.

 Our annual Christmas pageant. Zach was the shepard, Joseph, the angel and a wiseman. No other boys present!

 And Papa got some loves from the kids as well!

 So happy!

 So---???

 Nana and Papa go to town for Christmas! It was such fun for everyone!! We were all spoiled rotten!

 I adore this leather journal Corey picked out for me. It's perfect! Probably my favorite gift of all!

I know I posted a million pictures, and there are more to come. Unfortunately, I am the only "photographer" in the family, and I know my parents love to see these photos and share them with my less-technology-savvy grandparents, so bear with me!!

 My mother-in-law's tree is to die for!

 MUNCHKIN!!!!!!

 Opening gifts at my parent's. Spoiled again!

 We traveled to Rupert to visit Grammy, who just adores these babies. 

 I was so glad we got to go to Temple Square to enjoy the lights and spirit there.

 Mike spoiled Mom and Missy with Sherpa coats. He worked hard to shop for everyone this year- so sweet!

 Handmade by Meadow

 The most amazing gift ever--a gorgeous quiet book made by Missy and Meadow. Seriously, these are SO much work!! I can't believe they did it, but I am praying it will be the magic bullet to keep Zach quiet during sacrament meeting!!! I will treasure it forever!

 This kid has the most adorable smile I have ever seen!!

 Ummm... CUTE!!

 Tiny Michael Foster

 She's always holding objects in her mouth lately. I love it!

 We all got to go to Cheesecake Factory while Mom volunteered to watch the kids. YAY!!

One last hug Goodbye. It's always hard to leave, but we will be back this summer for the Malan Reunion. It was an awesome Christmas, and luckily, no one in our family got too terribly ill or had too much disruption to their sleep cycle. We are pretty much on-schedule now. When we returned from our trip last summer, I never wanted to travel again due to the illness and lack of sleep that lingered with us for weeks! It must've just been their ages or the extensive trip to northern Idaho or something. This trip was much more enjoyable thanks to the direct flight and minimal driving. 

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas 2011!

We celebrated Christmas with our little family here in Coppell, Texas on the 18th and 19th of December before flying out to Utah. We are trying to establish our own Christmas traditions, and both this year and last, we read the New Testament account of Christ's birth and let Zach "act it out" with our ceramic Nativity figurines the night before we opened gifts. Once the kids are older and there are more of them, I hope we can actually act it out. 

I really tried this year to focus on the Savior the entire holiday season. I was getting sick of shopping and Santa pretty close to Thanksgiving this year, and Zach was obsessed with Rudolph and Frosty, which is fine for a three-year-old, but he is definitely capable of understanding the true reason we celebrate Christmas. We got some great books from the library and watched several church nativity videos that we all enjoyed throughout the month of December. Oh, and Elf. :) One of the library books had the exact words from Luke 2, and after reading it a few times, Zach had most of it memorized, which was beautiful. He recited it a few times over the holidays--readily at first, but I had to bribe him after the 3rd Christmas pageant!! 

 We put up a tree this year, even though we weren't home for 10 days of the month. We all loved it! I loved sitting in the glowing lights, and would often turn the lights on in the dark, early mornings while snuggling and reading with the kids.

 Zach was super-excited about Santa's delivery of the gifts on Christmas morning. We didn't place any under the tree until the night before we opened them, because we knew he and Zoey would tear into them.

 Zoey's reaction to her first doll--one that moves and makes baby sounds-- was PRICELESS!!! I didn't think a 10 month old would really care or get what was going on, but I decided it was time we give her a girl toy since she has only had Zach's trucks and tools to play with. She was honestly ECSTATIC and excited as could be, squealing and waving her hands like mad! It was seriously the highlight of our holiday!!

 She was almost equally excited about Zach's Toy Story tent. They both love that hideout, and now maybe we won't have to make tents with blankets all over the house!

 We also got Zach a Leapster 2 as part of his birthday gift from Nana. He is always wanting to be on our computers to play learning games on Starfall.com, Sesame Street, etc., so we wanted him to have something a little more versatile and age-appropriate to play on. He hasn't had much of a chance to learn how to use it yet, but I am hoping he will dig it!

Corey and I also exchanged gifts. He got me a nice white sweater and some chocolates that he thought I loved...:) (Ferrero Rocher sounds and looks like Almond Roca--an honest mistake we laughed about after I asked why he got them for me!!), and I got him an alarm clock/docking station for his iPhone and some computer stuff and some T-shirts. Everyone received more gifts on our vacation also. Too many!

We flew out to Salt Lake a few hours after opening  our gifts, which I will hopefully have time to post about before too long!

'Twas a very Merry Christmas for our little family!