Christmas 2008- Utah

Christmas 2008

This Christmas we went to Utah to spend the holidays with my family at my sister's house in Magna (near the SLC airport). We had SO much fun and it was great to just relax and play together. We are not so good at taking pictures so the majority of these posts are compliments of my sister and her awesome blogging skills and camera (thanks Shelley!). Hope that you all had a Merry Christmas and enjoy seeing what we've been up to.

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Arrival

We left for Utah about 6:30 am on December 21st because we wanted to get there before dark. It was a long drive but the weather was great and other than a detour in Vegas it was pretty uneventful.

I brought my nieces the slips they were supposed to wear at my wedding but never did and they thought that they were the greatest dress-up clothes. Too funny!

Christmas PJs

One of our family traditions at Christmas time is that my Mom buys all of us new PJs. We usually open them on Christmas Eve and take fun pictures in front of the Christmas tree. This year we opened them the Sunday before Christmas because my brother and sister had planned to be with their in-laws on Christmas Eve. But we still had fun and made some great memories.

Emberly excited to open her PJs

Little Katie just being cute

Cason and Shelley

Jeffrey opening his PJs

Cason showing off his new PJ shirt as well as Aubrielle's.

Emberly and her "tute" PJ shirt

Dad being silly as usual

Jocelynn was too tired for Pajama madness

Sporting our new PJs

Jeff & Dad

Mom & Dad

The "buff" boys (check out those farmer tans!)

Our guys!

Mike & Katie

Karlie, Jeffrey, Katie & Mike (The Badger's)

The Girls

The girls being SASSY!

The girls with the kids (except for the tired Jocey)

Mom & daughter (they look so much alike!)

Cason, Jocelynn, Emberly, Shelley & Aubrielle (The Smith's)

Aubrielle being too cute

Singing a little Christmas tune

No party is complete without "Ring-around-the-Rosies"

My brother Jeff

Mom & Shells

Bud decided to start the twins Guitar Hero training early. They were so into it that they cried when we took them away.

Lights on Temple Square

Monday night Bud and I went to dinner with my parents downtown at Z-tejas. After dinner we took Trax over to temple square and saw the lights. It was really cold but it was beautiful and we were really glad that we went.








Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is always so much fun. There is always lots of action in the kitchen which usually includes Mom's famous sugar cookies, pies and preparation for Christmas morning cinnammon rolls. Needless to say there was no lack of goods to eat.

Decorating sugar cookies

Emberly was such a big helper in the kitchen

Jeffery wrapping some presents

The guys working on a special building project for my sister for Christmas.

As you can see the sugar cookies were a hit and so was Guitar Hero. We were so glad we brought it. Even mom got in on the action.

Heaping apple pie. Yum!

I was on banana cream pie duty with the twins. They were huge fans of licking the bowl clean with me.

Yummy...sugar!!

Christmas Day

Christmas Day was so much fun! Everyone was pleased with what Santa left for them under the tree especially me. According to my sister I won the "best reaction" award. I didn't believe her until I saw the pictures. I'm sure that you'll get a good laugh from a few of them. Let's just say that my sweet Buddy pretty much spoiled me rotten this Christmas. I was so surprised.

The beautiful tree

Presents!

Stockings full of fun!

The twins checking to see if Santa ate his cookies and whether the reindeer ate their carrots.

I have to give a shout out to my mom because she woke up at 6:30 am showered and made her famous cinnamon roles and scrambled eggs. What an awesome woman!

Aubrielle's first Christmas where she could open things herself. Too fun!

Breakfast after we open stockings!

Here is the secret project the boys were working on for my sister. Of course my Dad the handy man did most of the work. It's a fantastic work bench for all of her vinyl projects. She owns her own business and this will be great for painting and applying vinyl and she won't have to use the kitchen counter anymore.

The girls were pretty excited about the princess crowns and jewelry I got them for Christmas. They love to dress up.

Jeff gets a thumb drive

Hooray new ties!

Mom gets an iHome (now she just needs an iPod)

New cell phone!

Dad gets an awesome wrench

New perfume

A new game!

Fairy dress up

Mom gets a GPS

Barbie Mariposa! (A Barbie with HUGE butterfly wings...strange but they were super excited)

My parents gave us a beautiful album that our photographer made of our wedding day. We LOVE it!

Shelley gets a diva watch (bling, bling!)

I gave Bud the cordless Peanut razor. We always cut his hair at home and his sister has this razor and he's always liked it so I thought it would be a great gift.

Ok...here comes the "best reaction photos" I told Bud that I would love to have P90X, a set of workout DVDs and nutrition program, after I saw it on TV one time. He thought it was pretty cool too because you can do all the workouts from home. Working full-time has made it hard to get to the gym and I'm the only one with a membership so we can't go together. But the whole system is about $120. Our friend got it for his wife for Christmas and he kept telling me that we could burn it from them so we wouldn't have to spend the money. I had no problem with that and didn't really think about it after that...so you can imagine my surprise when I saw the box on Christmas morning.

I think he got the reaction he was looking for ;)

But I surprised him too with the new Guitar Hero World Tour game.

Now for "best reaction" #2...Bud kept telling me that he had put his XBox 360 on Craig's list to see if he could possibly sell it to get extra money for Christmas or possibly trade if for something we needed or wanted. The week before we left he told me he had received a few calls but the prices people offered him were too low and the trades weren't very good. Well once again he was lying. A few days before we left a lady called him and ask if he wanted to trade his xBox for a Wii...he was sold! We have been talking about getting a Wii since it is something you can do as a family as well as with friends but they are very expensive so we never talked about it seriously. I NEVER expected this present as you can clearly see from the picture. Too funny!

My Dad got my mom a head and foot board for their bed that she has wanted for a long time. She was so surprised and excited.

This is a picture of the bed
I also got another fun thing I asked for...SNOW! I just didn't expect this much.

Lake Meade

On the way back to Phoenix we went through the Vegas area and were able to get some shots of lake Meade at sunset. We wanted to also get pictures of the Hoover Dam but the traffic was so bad that it was dark by the time we got to go over it.




We arrived home in Phoenix Saturday December 27th and are happy to be back. We loved spending time with family and we sure miss them but we missed the warmer weather! It's still a little chilly hear in the mornings but it won't last long. Well...this post is already long enough...We hope that you all had a merry Christmas this year and that you have a happy new year. Next year we'll be in California with the Packard's and we are SO excited to spend time with them. Until next time!