Christmas in Utah - Part 2

Christmas Day was busy, but somehow still relaxing. We did a big Christmas dinner, the preparation of which took up quite a bit of the day. Other than that, we opened presents and hung out with family. Here is the Christmas morning scene (note the adorable little juniper Christmas tree.) The kids dumped out their stockings first, which included crayons, flashlights, and, of course, candy.

Connor and Elise received so many wonderful gifts from friends and family, we have to say thank you to everyone for their generosity. Caught in these pictures, though, are Connor's toy dinosaurs and "big kid" tool set, and Elise's playsilks, new pajamas, and baby doll. (Plus, of course, the crocheted Goomba Kelli made for Kevin.)


Ryan got me an I.O.U. for a new couch (which we now have, and it's fabulous.) I got Ryan the new Super Mario Wii, but that didn't make it onto the camera for some reason. Connor was very excited to give Kelli this ball of rainbow yarn he found at the store. The moment he saw it on the shelf, he ran up and said "We should get this for Kelli!" It took all his self control not to tell her about it in the days before Christmas.
After our meal, and a trip to see the new house, we went to Grandma Cloe's where she gave us all these great handmade hats! They came in very handy, given how stinkin' cold it was up there.


Oh, and then my brothers did this. Yeah, I guess we're related.
Wonderful Christmas, wonderful trip.

Christmas in Utah - Part 1

This year we got to spend Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa up in Utah! Now, as a rule, we don't like to do Christmas away from home, but we figured that since we didn't make it up for Thanksgiving, and since I'll be pretty busy in February (when we traditionally go up to see real winter), the sensible thing was to do the holidays in Utah! Our first activity was to get Connor his first professional haircut, and heaven knows he needed it. I've been the one to cut his hair since he was a baby, but I've never pretended to know how. So, this was a combination mercy gift and educational experience for mom. Hopefully my efforts in the future will be a little bit better!
From the first day we arrived, Connor was bugging Grandma to make "gingerbread men" with him. This was a big deal. They had to be gingerbread men, like in the story. So, Grandma explained that gingerbread was NOT the same as sugar cookie dough, and when he expressed his full understanding of that fact, she bought cookie cutters and made a batch of (mostly unspiced, for the kids' sake) homemade gingerbread. Connor came running to taste the dough, with pure joy on his face, but was extremely unimpressed. It tasted funny, he said, and he didn't like it. Soooo, Grandma put the dough in the fridge and proceeded to make another full batch of sugar cookie dough. It passed the Connor taste test, so the kids cut out the shapes, then later decorated their creations. Here they are looking proud.



Elise insisted she wanted half a bottle of sprinkles on her cookies, then decided she didn't like sprinkles, and proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes scraping them out of the frosting with her finger. Yeah, the grown-ups didn't eat many of these.

We were blessed with plenty of snow to play in, and got to go see Grandma and Grandpa's new house in the countryside (they actually closed on it while we were there!)






After Ryan joined us, a couple days before Christmas, he went with Connor and Chuck to cut a Christmas tree. My parents own property in the middle of nowhere that's covered with juniper trees, and although it was a little unconventional-looking, the little tree they picked was awesome. They unfortunately got stuck in the snow, since they made this trip during the beginnings of a blizzard (at Ryan's insistence), but they did make it out eventually.
On Christmas Eve, Ryan made our traditional Christmas Crab (here he is cracking the leftovers), and we all had the opportunity to paint wooden ornaments for the tree. Kyle and Kelli were there, and Uncle Kevin came down from Salt Lake to spend a couple days, so it was really cool to be together. It was a great Christmas Eve!

L.A. Auto Show, and Connor's Early Christmas Present

The first weekend in December, we all went downtown to look at the L.A. Auto Show. I thought it would be horribly boring, but I was mostly wrong - it was kinda cool. There were a bunch of ridiculously expensive cars on display, along with new models of more conventional cars. Elise really liked the Porsche (note the sign on the handle saying "do not touch".)





Afterwards, the kids had a great time goofing around on these weird concrete cylinders in the courtyard.
Winter came to Los Angeles! Traditionally, winter is confined to the month of December, so we broke in our new fireplace - notice our terribly safe fire screen. We did replace it a day or two later with a real one, lest you be too concerned.
Joy School did their annual Christmas Pageant at the family party - it was adorable (as always). Connor got to be the shepherd, and did a great "surprised" look while pointing at the star. Since Elise had been present at almost all of the rehearsals, she firmly insisted that she be included as well, so she was given the job of third Wise Man, and did a great 2-year-old job following the big kids. Our camera ran out of batteries right after this picture was taken, so this is all we get. They repeated the show two days later at a nursing home, but we didn't get to attend. That's because I was busy that morning getting Connor's early Christmas present - a shiny blue cast! He and Elise had been running around like crazies the night before, crashed into one another, and Connor fell on his arm wrong. He cried and cried, telling me that it hurt "so much", which I took as a very serious sign, since he'd never acted like that before. His dad thought he was faking, and was only convinced at 5am when Connor was still waking up crying from the pain (we didn't sleep much). The pediatrician on call had advised us to try to get him to sleep rather than wasting time in an ER all night, so I did my best first-aid splint, which helped a little, and tried to keep him happy until offices opened in the morning. Ryan was also able to give him a blessing before he left for work, which was really cool. Actually, Connor didn't complain of pain at all after that. It turns out he broke both bones in his forearm, just a little down from his elbow. Poor kid. It hasn't slowed him down much, though. The following day was the ward Christmas brunch, which had a really cool marionette troupe as the main entertainment. Both kids loved it, but Elise was absolutely delighted.



They also got their first picture with Santa Claus! Two days later, the kids and I started our 3-week Holiday Family Tour, which kind of impacted blogging, so sorry about that. More updates will surely follow!