New Years in Utah!

Oh, how I love to visit my family in Utah! On the Monday after Christmas, we loaded the car early and took off to Sandy, UT.... the drive went miraculously well and we arrived in my parents driveway 10 hrs after leaving ours. We hadn't done the drive that efficiently since before we had kids! It was awesome. We only stopped TWICE - once in Kingman and once in St. George. We also attributed the quick drive to the new Hoover Dam bridge! It felt like a dream just driving over and past that darn dam. :) I know many people come far and wide to see the Hoover Dam, but I have NEVER done the tour or gone through the tourist stuff there... I just look at it as a thorn in my side as we have to slowly make our way through the winding road on our way to and from Arizona. SO happy that that route to Utah is much quicker now. :) Anyway, as always our Utah visit was full to the brim with activities and games and fun family time. I love love it!

My mom put together a gingerbread house with the girls. Mom did the frosting and the girls did the candy. Isn't it cute? :)






We went to Salt Lake to visit my Grandparents. We spent some time chatting at their home and then they took us out to lunch...




The kids played in the snow in the backyard... when we first got to my family's house, the snow was sparse, and then on Wednesday evening, the snow started coming down like crazy! The kids were so excited they immediately wanted to get out there, even though it was super windy and blizzardy. They had such a fun time out there in the freezing cold. :)




We also played lots of Kinect! We were sure to bring it along with us since we didn't get much time to play with it before leaving to Utah. And, we also got 2 new Kinect games from my family for Christmas! We had a BLAST playing the sports games. We were surprised to discover that Emma is crazy good at the boxing. hahaha! She's spins her arms like a windmill, crazy fast, and beat Ben, Sarah, and then almost beat Aaron, but we blame her loss to the fact that she was getting tired after beating the pants off of everyone else immediately beforehand. Sorry Aaron. :)



And speaking of Christmas gifts, we had a mini Christmas at my family's home when we first arrived. In addition to the Kinect games, we got some favorite movies on DVD (Eclipse, Inception, and How to Train your Dragon), an Olive Garden gift card, plus some new clothes for Ben and I, pillow pets for the girls and a new outfit and batman toy for Jake. I'm happy to see that Jake is finally getting a good collection of boy toys. Now he'll have more than just a pink kitchen and baby dolls to play with. :)

We also went ice skating at the Gallivan Center downtown. It was COLD. But it was so fun! I didn't skate because of my big prego belly, so I stayed on the sidelines taking pictures and keeping Jake warm and happy (but he was mostly mad 'cause he wanted to be skating). Emma was quite good at the skating! When we went roller skating earlier in the year, she really struggled, along with Becca... but this time around on the ice, she could actually skate without holding anyone's hand for a little while.





See, Emma's so fast, she's a blur! :)








After skating, we walked up to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights. At the skating rink the cold was manageable, but when we got up to the temple, we were all freezing our tails off. Jake was MAD. But we hurried through and tried to warm up a bit in the visitors center... brrr.... but pretty!










On New Years Eve day we went to the Dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point...


































That night we let the kids stay up a little later than normal (but not till midnight... that would have driven me crazy!). Around 8:30 we sent them outside to bang on some pots and make a ruckus. They gave some weak attempts and Becca looked mostly forlorn to be shoved outside in the cold to hit a saucepan with a spoon. hmmm... i thought they'd like it!


The adults on the other hand, stayed up till midnight (yay for me!) and ate lots of food, played many games, and made much ruckus in the process. It was a great evening! Happy 2011!! On New Years Day (and our last day in Utah) we went sledding at the nearby park. It was great sledding day... plenty of snow on the ground, and a sunny sky. The kids all loved it. This was Jake's first time sledding...








On the 2nd we drove home to Arizona. We were sad to leave. It's been weird coming home from a week long trip and holiday celebrations and immediately starting back up with kids in school. But I'm happy to say that Ben is doing research for the month of January, so he is working from home for the next 4 weeks! This afternoon he took Emma to the nearby golf course to practice with her clubs at the driving range. They both came home quite happy!

Christmas 2010

Christmas was so wonderful this year! But then again, I can't think of a Christmas in past years that hasn't been wonderful... so I must just love Christmastime! We spent Christmas Eve at Ben's family's home in Gilbert. But first we met them downtown to see Narnia! It was great! Grandma Dangerfield took on the task of keeping Jake happy during the movie... and I'm thrilled to report that Jake sat nicely on Grandma's lap during the entire thing! He pretty much ate popcorn and candy the entire time till about the last 30 minutes when he fell asleep... sounds like Jake enjoyed his movie going experience... haha. :) Later at Grandma and Grandpa's house, the kids played and helped make gingerbread cookies...




That evening we did the traditional Christmas Eve Advent and the kids acted out the Christmas story in Luke. Adam was Joseph, Emma was Mary, and Rebecca was the angel. :)






Then we drove home and put out cookies and a letter for Santa and the next morning the kids were thrilled to see that he had come!...

Santa is a messy eater


One of these years I'll have to actually stitch the kids names on their stockings... probably less tacky then a pinned on piece of construction paper :)




Ben getting started making Christmas breakfast... we had french toast with chocolate syrup (yup!) and maple butter, raspberries, and bananas, and also sausage and orange juice... it was delicious!


I didn't gets pics of all the Christmas loot, but some of the highlights were the gifts from Santa - Emma got a writing set (which she specifically asked Santa for), Becca got a pink scooter, and Jake a basketball hoop (one of those toddler sized ones for the back porch). Emma also got her own set of golf clubs! She was thrilled (and so is daddy), Becca got her own suitcase (to coordinate with the one Emma got for her birthday), and Jake got plenty of boyish toys (which were seriously lacking in this house!). Ben got an new Xbox game he's been wanting, and the first Alton Brown Good Eats cookbook (it's so great having a husband that loves to cook!). And I got a Kinect!! hehe!! I'm still giddy about it. I've been ooing and ahhing over them since they came out for the Xbox, and Ben really did pull off surprising me with it on Christmas morning. The pic above is of the girls trying it out on Christmas morning. It's so hilarious to watch others play it because you don't need any sort of controller... it just reads your body heat and your movement is tracked on the game. It really is amazing!

After opening presents and eating our breakfast, we hopped in the car still in our Christmas jammies and headed to Grandma's house again for more family time and more gifts! :) The girls got some AWESOME doll house furniture... the really nice Pottery Barn kids stuff (to go with the doll house they got from grandma earlier in the year)... It makes me actually want to play dolls with them! Becca played with it for hours at the dining room table - she just loves imaginative play like that. And I got a beautiful antique bassinet for the new baby! It will be perfect for our little GIRL on the way (still can't believe I'll have 3 girls!). We also got a season pass to the Phoenix zoo for our whole fam from the Lee's! So nice! I'm anxious to get out and use it soon.













Emma trying out her golf clubs in grandma's backyard





After spending the morning enjoying our goodies, we headed to the aquarium! Ben's parents treated us to a great outing there... we were impressed by the place - it was really nice and quite big with lots of fun sea life.













It was a memorable Christmas! Next post: Utah and New Years! :) I love holiday time!