Christmas Vacation

So I didn't do a very good job at taking pictures over the break....but as I look through the ones I have uploaded I think, "there are a ton of pictures on here." I guess it's just that we packed so much into the two weeks we were in Utah and I probably only took pictures of half of what we did. I wish I had done better!! Oh well. And as you look through them, you might think,"Was Crescent even there?" seeing how there is a total of ONE picture with me in it. So I will tell you now, yes I really did vacation with the rest of the family and now I just have to train the hubby to start taking some pictures once in a while! Anyway, we had the greatest time in Utah and got to see lots of family and friends. Still didn't get to catch up with everyone, but it's hard to be going, going constantly. It is always just so nice to be able to relax and not have any obligations to worry about. Here are some of the highlights from our trip:
One of the greatest things is we could go outside dressed like THIS (Maia Below) and not be cold!!!
Playing at Grandma Barbara's house with LOTS of cousins!! I didn't get many pictures of cousins, but this is Maia and Grandma Barbara...Maia had just gotten to put her handprint on Grandma's famous dollhouse, a real treat for Maia.
Maia LOVEd playing with Ericka....they would spend hours playing with the dollhouse together. There was constant entertainment for her so the first couple days back here were rough for David and I!! We had to be the entertainers!

Being silly with sister...
Dressing fancy for church...Maia loves to pose for pictures and found this perfect spot for her picture and situated herself there until I came and took her picture.
Opening up Christmas Eve Pj's...
Christmas morning...waiting for everyone to wake up....Maia spent a lot of time the day before, organizing and arranging the presents and making a pile for each person. She got so excited every time another present ended up under the manger for her. I love living the childhood excitement of Christmas again through your kids, it's seriously the best!
The stockings...
Maia got undies in her stocking but Elsie was the one who kept wanting to put them on! Guess we better start potty training soon:)
Elsie and Nana reading one of her books...I love how Elsie would get so excited after each present and stop to read and/or play with it. We would have to hand her another present to open. She was just content and happy with whatever she had.
Elsie's new baby doll, carseat, and diaper bag were a HUGE hit, as I knew they would be!!
Maia is OBSESSED with Rapunzel right now, so she was really excited to get some things from that, especially since she had just seen the movie a few days earlier.
James E. Talmage is my great-great grandfather. David LOVES the man and has been wanting a picture of him for quite some time. My grandparents had said they would give each of us a copy, but that was a few years ago and we still hadn't gotten it. So I refreshed their memory a bit, they did some searching, and found the picture! Yay! David was so excited. He is determined to name our boy Talmage....
More presents...
I loved that we could take walks outside and enjoy the fresh air!! That is the hardest thing for me in the winter time here in Buffalo...it just gets TOO cold for that....although the day after we flew in it was 45 degrees and I was able to go for a run OUTSIDE which was amazingly wonderful!!
We also had a fire at my parents house on Christmas night. The kids loved it.

I got to go see my sister and her new little baby for a couple days with just my mom and Maia. Maia was dying to see her cousin River so we definitely couldn't leave her behind!
Some catch up time with girlfriends... wasn't very good at taking pictures of us with other friends though!
And of course, lots of time jumping on the trampoline!
And lastly, we finally got snow to play in....the kids were waiting and waiting for it so they could go sledding and build a snowman (why I don't know, we have PLENTY of opportunities to do that here!) but the night before we left, it snowed enough for them to have a little playtime in it that morning before we had to head out.

So that about sums it up! Well, there was one other HUGE part of our vacation that I will have to post on later when I get pictures taken of all the projects my mom and I worked on. My mom is amazing and so selfless. She would stay up late every night working on whatever projects I wanted to do. So we were able to get lots of stuff done for this new little baby. I will have to take pictures and post them soon!