What a Jolly Holiday!

On December 10, 2009 all the stars aligned. Jared was done with finals, we woke up an hour late and still made our flight, the boys were awesome on the five hour trip and we made it to Utah for the first time since we moved out. We saw my mom first, who took us to the mall while we waited for 3 other flights to come in (all within 2 hours). Noelle met us there and the boys had a great time at the DinoDiscovery Zone (I made that name up).

On top of the slide

And down! Noah was extremely grumpy when he woke up, so it was good to see him finally get into playing.

Next we met EVERYONE at Sweet Tomatoes. It was utter chaos. In a good way.

Isaac was happy to be reunited with his cousins, his old pals.

At the hotel, Noah got tickles from Uncle David

and acquainted with Schaffer

We have all been waiting for the moment we could meet Schaffer. What a cool, sweet baby!

Grandma had something in store for the little ones: early Christmas gifts to play with!

Isaac was thrilled

So were the adults

It was all-out war and even the dog was hit (a lot).

Trace, Kennedy

It was soooo good to see all my brothers and sisters!

Bobbie, Danny, me, Corky, Noelle, David, Traci. ALL HERE!

And have my kids get to know them all.

Isaac and Kennedy lead the way to the ice skating rink

This is Cat. She's awesome. We are hoping to add her to the batch soon.

Cat, Noelle, Mom, Corky, Ashton, Bobbie

Danny, Kennedy, Dad

Ashton, Corky

My padres

Isaac, Ashton and Kennedy attack David

At Dad's house, the scary life-sized Santa sang and danced with Kennedy.

And Faith remembered Isaac.

Noelle was sick and Danny was sleepy.

Then we ditched the kids to go nightskiing. Sorry, no pictures of that, put here's an awesome bruise Jared got from it:

I cannot stress enough the amount of joy Isaac felt from being with his cousins.

Here they all are.

Ashton, Danny

The Gibson Family

The girls: Terree, Bobbie, Cat, Noelle, me, Mom, Kennedy, Traci

The guys: Danny, Dad, Corky, David, Isaac, Schaffer, Ashton, Noah, Jared

There's those crazy kids again

Isaac and Ashton strike a pose

Isaac put up with a lot by sleeping with Noah. Every morning they woke up like this (Noah perpendicular), but usually there was some loudness involved in the night with Noah falling off the bed or screaming from nightmares. We all could've used a lot more sleep, but we were having too much fun.

After we said goodbye to David and Trace we had one day to see Jared's side. We went to Orem and Kamas to see Jared's grandparents (Noah posed like Mr. Roboto). We didn't get a picture of the Laneys.

We also saw a bunch of cousins at a little shindig in Santaquin, but I wasn't smart enough to get the camera out of the car for that. Anyway, we were constantly on the go, but it was so worth it! I cried as we lifted off from the runway. It was good to be home, though. Two days later, we got hit with a wonderful snowstorm. Endless winter!

"I love snow!"

Before:

After:

It snowed and snowed and snowed. So beautiful! Of course, life in Maryland stops at the first flurry, so when a storm like this comes, everybody's buying toilet paper the night before.

View from our backyard

Noah, Jared, Isaac

After a while, we let the kids warm up and watch a movie while we played like crazy children in the snow. Now to get ready for Christmas....