Christmas in the Sun

I am happy to say we did not have a white Christmas this year. For the first time in our married life, we did not have Christmas in our own place. We drove down to Arizona to enjoy some time with the Cox family. It was nice to go from the negative degrees to the 60's. I was sad to leave. I can see why some people have winter homes there, it was wonderful. We thoroughly enjoyed spending time with family too. We hardly saw Libby and Addie, they were busy playing up in Addie's room having some cousin bonding time. Elliot and Carter both love cars and other vehicles so they had lots of fun playing with the Christmas spoils. There was minimal fighting as well, few little fights about toys, but i was amazed at how well they played. It will be fun to see them play together more as they get older. Brynn was a delight as well, such a sweet happy baby! Love her! The adults enjoyed lots of card games and visiting and yummy food. Penny and Tim came the day after Christmas too which added to the fun! The kids of course loved all the presents they got and especially the stocking candy (I"m pretty sure Libby's was gone the first day).  We also got to see some of the awesome parks around the area, which is something we've missed here in Rexburg lately. I also got to see my beautiful cousin Jill get married in the Mesa temple to her boy Tristan. It was a beautiful day. It was awesome to see my cousins for a little bit, they all live far away and it's been years since I've seen them. I was sad not to be able to attend the reception, but with kids and such, it didn't happen. The car rides were pretty good. We did have to stop in Mesquite on the way home and get a hotel because we stayed up way to late the night before and driving on 6 hrs of sleep was not a great idea. The hotel was nice and we got plenty of sleep and a huge breakfast before finishing our drive back to Rexburg. The kids shared a bed too which was really adorable. We were surprised they did so well especially with us in the same room watching netflix.

Picture time, in no particular order...

We went to lots of parks

Carter and Elliot riding a dinosaur at the park

Christmas Eve before bed in new jambes

Cute girls

Awesome Train Park

Girls on the train ride waving to everyone we passed

Elliot watching the trains go by in the train museum. He could've stayed in there all day. Little boy heaven

Riding in Santa's sleigh 

The nations tallest fresh cut Christmas Tree

Short little hike in the desert

Lots of trampoline jumping occurred

I made Elliot a new blanket and he LOVES it. It's so soft, I tried to steal it in the car and he wouldn't let me

I made Libby a princess bedspread that she loves. She was using a soft blanket I had in college, but it wasn't pink, so she was very excited to get this one.

I made these fun little car holders for Carter and Elliot. They fold up nice so you can keep it in the church bag. 

Since I haven't blogged in awhile, a little kid update as well: The kids are in a great stage right now where they are becoming friends and play pretty nicely together.  I love hearing them giggle together in their room. Elliot is starting to increase his vocabulary which is very nice. Not many sentences, but he gets his point across much better than before. One of his few sentences is really random, one day he started saying "Hi, I'm Nemo." for no reason. Libby thinks it's hilarious though and they will say it back and forth over and over laughing hysterically. "Come with me" is another very common one as he pulls you by the hand to something he wants. Elliot is figuring out how to get attention though when he should be sleeping or letting us sleep. He knows if he says "poop" we will get up and take him to change his diaper...only half the time he isn't poopy, he just wants me to get up with him and tries to convince me to turn on a movie. He did this in the car 2x on the way home as well when he was sick of the carseat... he might be getting too smart. He also likes to say "owie" to avoid bedtime. Libby has a wonderful imagination. She still regularly insists on being called by different princess names and will correct you if you forget. She asks me all the time for new dress up clothes. Maybe I'll actually make her a dress instead of my practice aprons for my etsy shop. Libby loves preschool. We are going to try out afternoon instead of morning though since she takes after her mommy and has a hard time waking up. We were late most days this last month because I couldn't get her out of her blankets and dressed in time (and never remember account for scraping the ice off the windows).

sharing a bed