Fun and Family!

What would Christmas be without our annual trip to Utah to spend time with our family? We didn't want to find out this year so we said goodbye to our newly opened Christmas gifts, packed up and left bright and early the next day. As mentioned in my previous post, we had a very fun and eventful first day there. Here are some highlights from the rest of the trip...

The kids were a little disappointed when we first arrived to see a serious lack of snow on the ground. Thankfully, mother nature heard their complaints and started with a little sprinkling of snow just a few hours later. Just enough for Audrey and Marissa to head out to catch some of the fresh flakes on their tongues.



As I've already mentioned, we were blessed to see the Hecker's for a few hours that first night and we had to get a shot of this cute little pair together again. Audrey loves her Levi. She still claims that he is the boy she is going to marry and although I know that is probably a long shot, wouldn't it be cute to include this photo in their wedding announcements?






Finally the big snow came. We suited up and headed out into the cold. The snow was wet and sticky and perfect for snow balls and building snow forts. Ben had so much fun sledding for the first time, making snow angels and throwing snowballs at Mommy. When he was ready to come in Keith and I traded spots and he came out to help Audrey and Marissa build their fort.

Christmas also wouldn't be the same without a trip to the Nutcracker Ballet with the Irwin girls. I think that Audrey loves this more and more every year. She was on the edge of her seat and fought hard to stay awake until the end. She lost that battle with about 5 minutes to go but woke up on time to snap a few pictures with the giant nutcracker in the lobby.

We decided to try something new this year and headed over to an ice rink with the Burchett's and Mangrum's. We had no idea what to expect since none of our kids had even put on a pair of ice skates before. Ben hit the ice and pretty much turned into a bowl of spaghetti so he and his cousin Madison spent much of their time in the penalty box. Perfect spot for a couple of two year olds, don't you think? Sam and Audrey however, did great. After a little uneasiness at first they both caught on pretty quickly. They were disappointed when it was time to leave and we had to promise them that we would take them to the rink in San Antonio soon.





Katherine, Will, James and Mary brought their Wii over to the Sara's house one night and we all got to try out the game Just Dance. It was really fun to play but the very best was watching Sam and Mary do the duet dancing. We had tears in our eyes, we were laughing so hard. I just love how much these two love eachother and how much fun they have when they're together.



On our way home we missed our flight (oops). Unfortunately our bags were already checked so we had to spend an extra night there without any of our clothes or toiletries. Not good. What was great though was getting to spend another night with my sisters. We made a night of it and went out to dinner and spent another evening letting the kids play. It's always hard to leave our family and head back to Texas so I was happy to have that surprise extra night with them. We miss them all so much!!

Here are a few videos of some of the fun we had. Please excuse my loud laughing and commentary. Why can I never remember to keep quiet while taking video. I'm always so bugged to have to listen to it later!