Christmas Vacation

We have a fabulous time visiting family over the Christmas holiday.  Before heading out on the long drive, we did a small Christmas celebration at home.  The kids enjoyed opening presents and choosing which ones to bring on the car ride for entertainment.

We don't have a Christmas tree, the kids and I made one.  :)

We drove from Atlanta and stopped in to visit Jared and Richelle first.  It was so fun to stay with them and they kindly took us to go see the Christmas lights.  We all thought it was amazing and loved spending time with Jared and Richelle.

We then traveled up to visit with the Lewis family, where Alicia and Christian Draper were visiting Provo for the holidays.  Christian is in med school and so spent time with the kids listening to their heart beats.  He even let Matthias listen to his own heart beat.  We enjoyed spending time with them and Uncle Paul and Grandma and Grandpa Lewis.

We made it to Burley by Christmas Eve.  The kids were so happy to make it to Grandma and Grandpa Garn's house and so happy that Christmas was coming.  We continued our tradition of letting the kids open one present on Christmas even.  They were both thrilled with their slippers.

SO EXCITED! 

See Dad, they are awesome,

The kids were also sure that Santa would be able to find them and he did.  We took pictures as evidence because the kids slept right through his visit.

The kids had a great Christmas and were so excited to see their presents.  We have fun opening presents, talking with Uncle Jake over skype, dancing, and play in the snow.  The kids LOVE playing in the snow.  They threw snowballs, made snow angels, and more importantly they got to go sledding behind the four wheeler.  And Josh loved snowboarding behind the four wheeler.

So ready to go out in the snow!

Modeling?

More Modeling?

My turn!

Matthias totally beat Uncle Isaac in this boxing game.

For Christmas, Josh took his mom skiing.  They had a great time together on the slopes.

Frozen trees!  Elsa must have been here.

We also went bowling one night.  Matthias tried bowling like the "grown ups" as well as with the kid's roller thing.  Both kids did well bowling and Lizzy was the best cheerleader.

The kids thought this was a great bowling picture!  We all match.

Cheerleading!

After about a week in Burley, we said goodbye to the Garns and headed back to Utah.  We spent a wonderful afternoon with Kirsti and her family.  She gave Matthias some new K'nex and a book with his name in it.  She is so thoughtful and Matthias really loves her.  Then all of us went sledding and their park.  It was super fun!

K'nex dinosaur?!  Amazing.

After spending a great afternoon with Kirsti, Jess and Isaac were kind enough to watch Matthias and Lizzy so that Josh and I could go on a date.  Paul had received Jazz tickets for Christmas and kindly invited Dad, Josh and I to join him.  It was super fun to be all together.

We then traveled down to Provo and spent a couple of days with the Lewis family.  We had fun playing games and chilling.  Paul had our family for Christmas so gave us a couple of great books.  He also gave the kids some great presents--coloring books and markers for Matthias and jamberry nails and make up for Lizzy.  Paul knows just what to get my kids.

Matthias' new favorite game

Paul also got us a gift card to go Bowling at BYU.  It was busy the afternoon that we went, so we took a quick walking tour of campus before getting our bowl on.

More Cheerleading!

Perfect form.

We love being able to spend time with family as we celebrate the birth of our Savior.  It was a lot of driving, but so worth it.  And we are so lucky that we have such good travelers.  We are hopeful that we wont be doing this drive too many more times.