Still more Christmas

We met at Carrie's house with my family for our soup and rolls afternoon.  It was a bit odd this year without my mom and her passing still being so new.  We had a tearful, but so special time together.  A few years ago, I took a picture of the grandkids with their birth order number on a piece of paper.  Before mom passed away, she had designed t-shirts for all the grandkids, with their number on the back for their Christmas gift.  Colin gave us all a beautiful ornament to remember mom, with a story about them behind the engraving.  Mom collected Willow Tree figures, so I made a thought for those and gave one to each of the granddaughters.  My mom also loved lighthouses, so I bought tie tacks for the boys and Rachelle helped me write a note about lighthouses and moms example to give to the grandsons.   So there were lots of tender feelings and tears, but it was a beautiful Christmas together. 

After we were done, we went sledding.  Oh man it was so cold, but such a blast!

 

 One more stop.  We ended Christmas at Stewarts where the kids were even more loved, another way of saying spoiled rotten.  We are so blessed with such amazing family all around us.

 

Christmas Morning

I had a terrible thought Christmas Eve.  Owen only has 2 more Christmas's at home before his mission.  My heart hurt so bad when I came to that realization.  I may have been sad about that, but this Christmas was awesome, and I will enjoy days like this while I can.  My kids are still just as excited about Christmas morning as they were when they were 4 or 5.  We had a fun time opening presents and enjoying their gifts.  We didn't have to be to my families until 2:00, so that gave us all morning to just relax and enjoy the day. 

 Horses and Legos, the perfect combination for this animal loving, imaginative little girls.  She will have many hours of play time with this set. 

 Davis was happy with his loot.  Owen would call these things nerd toys, but Davis loves to build and create things.  And that red thing in the corner, he has wanted a metal sled so bad.  Lucky dog.

 A tens unit and Fifa16.  Owen said this little massager was probably his favorite gift.  He comes home pretty sore from basketball and wrestling, I see him using this unit a lot!

 Owen and his music, he wore through his headphones he got last year, and needed another pair.  Look at that stock of Gatorade, Davis knew just what his brother would love!

 Davis wanted these PJ's so bad, a Darth Vader onsie and a GoPro camera for skiing.  He is a happy kid!!

 Matching blankets and nightgowns for Gator and Harper, her daughter.  She's talked about this moment for 6 months and I think she is so beyond happy Santa pulled through on this one. 

Christmas Eve

It is quiet in my house, I have time to sit down and look at the many pictures I took the last 2 days.  Ally is at Lainee's, Davis is skiing, and Owen is at a movie, I should be cleaning, but I am sitting on my bum looking at pictures, updating the blog, and thinking about how much fun we had this Christmas.  It was a great one, lots of tender moments, and lots of family.  On Christmas Eve, after we warmed up from sledding, we went and ate ice cream.  How this tradition started, I can't exactly remember, but we enjoy it!  After ice cream, we went to Kaysville for our Jones party.  I love to go back and look at 17 years of this party, such a fun way to spend our Christmas Eve.

Tons of snow this winter

This winter has been awesome with the snow already.  Lots to play in.  This morning, we did some Christmas Eve sledding.  Now on to get our ice cream, it's a Christmas Eve tradition. 

Christmas Eve Eve

Yay!!  We are on Christmas break finally.  We've been waiting for this day.  Time to go out and play.  And we did just that all day today.  We went down to Salt Lake and started off at the Gateway seeing the new Chipmunk movie.  We loved the movie, it was a cute show, and much better then the one we saw last year on our Christmas trip to Salt Lake.  We were at the Gateway, and I was so surprised that it was so not crowded.  I mean like dead.  It was so nice, but then we went to the Gallivan Center to ice skate which is by the City Creek and Temple Square and I think the whole state of Utah was in this area of Salt Lake.  I guess no one likes the Gateway anymore since City Creek opened up.  We still had a great time skating and walking around beautiful Temple Square.  It was an insane time to go and by the time we made it to the lights, we were so tired, we rushed around to see what we could in between the mobs of people and got back on Trax to the ghost town Gateway and drove to get some dinner.  I loved today, I love days like this with my kids where we don't have an agenda and time doesn't matter.  It was a great day and I managed to keep them entertained since they are so crazy excited for Christmas Eve and Christmas. 

This was in front of Macy's.  Their window displays were all made out of candy. 

Christmas is here

Dad and Dianne had planned on coming up last night for a family Christmas dinner, but the a storm was blowing in making traveling conditions bad.  We had the building rented and the food prepared, so we went ahead with our plans and enjoyed an evening at Layton Park, while missing Dad and Dianne.

 

 

 

 

 

Different climates

During school yesterday, Owen texted me and asked if he could go to Vegas for the Vegas Bowl this weekend.  I sent him a laughing emoji, but he was serious.  Ryan and Chris were already going down to the BYU/Utah game and a friend that Owen and Chris hang out with had won tickets and was going down with them and had invited Owen.  So I went and got him from school he threw together a bag and he was on his way to Vegas.  The game didn't quite go how he wanted, but at least BYU came alive in the second quarter and finally gave Utah a game. 

While Owen was in the warm Vegas sun, Gator, Davis, and I went up to Snowbasin.  Davis was itching to ski after all the snow the mountains received this week.  Santa was skiing today and challenged Davis to a race, Davis said he couldn't even keep up with him.  UTA offers a $10 season pass for Basin season pass holders, but it has to be bought up at the resort.  So Gator and I packed a bag of games and books to hang out in the lodge while Davis skied. 

 On Wednesday, as we were getting tons of snow, Davis went sledding with a friend.  He came home excited about the hill they went to in North Ogden, so we stopped by there this afternoon on our way home so Gator could play in the snow too.  It is a pretty good hill, we will be going back after this weeks storm dumps some fresh snow!