Merry Christmas!

We celebrated Christmas this year at Mandy and Ty's house with Randy, Holly and their family. I absolutely LOVE being with family on Christmas! Especially when we live so spread out, it makes the season a little extra special just being together, even if it's just a few days. What did we do?

We played games

Daylen and Ivan could be found "playing" the Wii

Can't get together with all those kids without a little Wrestling

Christmas Eve included some singing of Christmas Carols, talking about the symbols of Christmas, then opening 1 gift, bet you can't guess what that was...

and reading a Christmas story in new PJs

I had to take a before and after shot of the Christmas tree...

because I have never seen so many presents under 1 tree before!

Christmas morning...the kids looking oh so excited!

What does Kate do first thing in the morning? Why eat candy of course!

We had a wonderful Christmas, hope you all did too!

Sledding Adventures

We had some fun sledding adventures at the sand dunes outside of Rexburg, Idaho. We spent Christmas with Mandy, Tyrel and their family, and Randy, Holly and their family and had a blast with everyone. Christmas Eve afternoon was spent playing in the snow. Randy and his family found a steep dune to "jump" off and sled down. Daylen had fun climbing up and sliding down on his bum. He's overall a pretty cautious kid, but when it come to sledding this kid has no fear it seems. He LOVES is while Kate, my crazy daredevil, is quite the opposite when it comes to sledding and snow. I got some nice footage, but unfortunately I have not been able to upload it successfully. I'll keep trying and post it later if I can.

Daddy and Daylen

Taylor, Randy, and Holly pulling Cayden and Jordyn

Mandy, Ivan, and Derek

Daylen and Kate tuckered out and being carried by an even more tuckered out daddy back to the van.

Brooks and I kept each other nice and warm.

Happy Sad

We ended up taking a quick and unexpected trip to Washington over Thanksgiving to attend my Grandpa Gilbert's funeral. Traveling on snowy roads is never fun, but it was well worth it. I am just glad we decided to stay an extra day and come back Monday instead of Sunday. The rest of my Utah family had horrible driving experiences between snowy roads, backtracking, and having to take the LONG way around due to road closures. We, on the other hand, had decent and open roads.

I love getting together with family, and I can't help but wonder if this was the last time so many of us will be together in one place at the same time. With both grandma and grandpa gone now, and so many of us, it's impossible to make schedules work. It was fun seeing as many people there as I did. The funeral was pretty special, I loved hearing evidence of grandpa's love for his family and the gospel over and over. It is true. He loved his family and was a proud father of 10 kids. A family that has now grown to 46 grandchildren, 108 great-grandchildren, and 4 great-great-grandchildren. Pretty amazing posterity.

The 10 kids


Spouses included


Some of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren

Although it may not have been the funnest reason to get together, it was great to spend a few days with my family nonetheless. Daylen and Kate loving their time with their cousins.

Brooks and Austin got to know each other a little better. Rachel came back to Utah with us for a couple of days before flying back to Texas.

If you're going to lay on the floor while grandkids are around grandpa, you better expect to get jumped and crawled on.

Austin is going to be the leader of this little pack I think.

Since Kate's little brother doesn't have any hair to comb she had to take advantage of Benson's little bit.

Of course whenever we go to Washington we get to take some time to visit with Brad's grandma, our last living grandparent now between the 2 of us. The kids always have fun playing with her toy selection and entertaining us all.

I love this sweet picture I got as we were saying our goodbyes. I just wish we could visit more often!