Christmas 2009

 I have not fallen off the face of the earth. We got home from our Christmas trip on Monday night, and  I have about a month's worth of holiday pictures and stories I want to document.  I'm sure it will take a while for me to catch up, but just know I don't expect all of you to care as much as we do, so I won't be offended if you don't read it.

First up - The Airplane

I have flown quite a bit with the kids, so I knew that they usually let you start boarding as soon as they start calling people. (Delta is not as child friendly, I have found.  Boo on Delta.)  So as soon as they started boarding, I mentioned to Derrick that we could go since we had kids. "Honey, look around.  This is a direct flight to SLC for Christmas.  EVERYONE has kids."  I looked behind me and there were a ton of families with children, and all the moms were giving me the evil eye if I dared to board out of turn.  It was quite funny to look down the aisle of the plane and see kids draped over arm rests and walking up and down the aisles to get the wiggles out.  I have never seen a flight with that many kids before.  The kids did ok, but we had to be separated.  Halle fell asleep, just how I like her on an airplane.  We also just happened to be on the same flight as a family in our ward here, and they have a girl a bit older than Hayden.  They also have a little boy a little older than Halle, who you can see playing peek a boo with her in this picture.

Derrick and Hayden got the back row with no windows, so it was a little rough for him

The first day there we went to my brother's new house and made graham cracker houses.

and just relaxed and lounged around for a while!

Christmas Eve...  It was crazy.  My mom, my sister-in-law, and I made candy in the morning.  Later everyone came over and we had dinner, and then exchanged presents.  That part was a little chaotic, but so fun to see all the kiddoes get excited.  Then my little ones got Christmas jammies and a family picture in front of the tree.

to be continued...