Christmas Break in Utah 2015-2016

We had SUCH a great time going home this year for Christmas. It was so nice! We were able to go home December 15-January 7th. Scott was on break from school, and since he is working for A&M as a graduate assistant, he could pretty much work from anywhere. So we took advantage of the long break. I think most of the photos can do the job of telling what types of activities we did with family.

We were lucky this year to finally have some snow for Kaiser to play around in, so we made sure to spend lots of time doing that. He really liked it, although he was super wary of sledding for some reason. But he looks so dang cute in all of his snow gear!

Four Wheeling around the Perkes' was a success this trip-Kaiser loved it!

Making snowballs

Helping Uncle Connor

The finished snowman. Kinda weird, right?

Grandma came over and played in the snow with us too!

Sledding down Grandpa's hill

Going up with Dad

...and Mom

Mom pushed him down the hill by himself. He was having a great time until he got to the bottom.

Love his pouty face

Checkin' things out with Grandma Teddy

We met Bost and Emmy at a sledding hill for some sledding and to make a snow man!

Pretty view! Love views of home!

We did lots of fun things with our families as well. We kept the tradition alive of going to SLC with Scott's family to see the lights. This year we decided to go to Hogle Zoo instead of trying to fight the crowds at temple square. The zoo lights were fantastic! Me, Scott, Kaiser, Connor, and Kendall met up with Bethany and Kacee down at their place and were able to spend a good portion of the day/evening with them.

Playing the drums inside a hippy bus at the zoo

After the zoo, we went back for pizza and Jim Carry's The Grinch. Kaiser loved the movie to our surprise.

We broke our Christmas up between all of our families, obviously. Sometimes it is really stressful feeling like you don't get to spend enough quality time with each family. We always say that we are just not going to stress out about it, and we always do. But I always remind myself that at least we are lucky to be able to stress out about it.

Christmas Eve day/evening spent with my Mom and Toni

Kaiser had the unfortunate opportunity of getting sick while we were in Utah. Shortly after we took the picture above, Kaiser started playing on the bean bag. When he would get short of breath, he would start coughing like crazy and it made him throw up. I think this was one of the first times, if not the first time he's ever thrown up. Poor little guy.

We then went to the Perkes' for the night. Kaiser ended up throwing up once or twice more at their house. He just didn't realize that running around made him more sick. And it's not that easy to make a crazy wiggly little 2 1/2 year old stop running around...

Christmas Eve night and morning spent with the Perkes'. We all watched Elf by the Christmas Tree.

We opened presents with the Perkes clan on Christmas morning. Uncle Bronson called from his mission in California and a lot of Andrea's family were able to come by and talk to him and spend Christmas with us. I should be better about taking pictures of everyone, not just Kaiser. But oh well...

Later that afternoon, we went over to Grandma Jana's house for more Christmas fun with the family. Bethany and Kacee were up and we got to Skype with Uncle Dallin, who is on his mission in Arizona. It was fun to have the family all together.

Kaiser loved these dolls--their hands moved and he was entranced by them. I loved how he would just sit and watch them.

We decided to spend the day after Christmas with my family because it worked out best for everyone's schedules. We drove up to Hardware Ranch and went to see the Elk. Holy crap, it was SOOOO cold that morning. I seriously thought my feet were going to fall off. But We had fun even though we all got some mild frostbite ;)

Kaiser loved the sleigh ride pulled by HUGE horses! He also thought the elk were fun to watch too!

After Hardware Ranch, we went back to my family's house and started opening presents...

As you can tell, Kaiser was SOO excited to get a homemade pound puppy from Grandma Teddy

Christmas is always such a fun time of year, and it always goes by way too quickly. We are really blessed to be able to have three families who live close to each other so that we can spend time with each of them during Christmas. We were definitely spoiled.

The rest of the pictures are just some random pictures of things we did while we were home.

Playdough with Grandpa Lehman

We went to a super fun Children's museum before we had to say goodbye to Aunt Toni. It was in Ogden. The kids had a blasty! Kaiser loved everything until he saw the train table--then he seriously did not want to leave. We pretty much stayed and played with the trains the rest of the time.

The new Ogden LDS temple. It is sooo pretty! First time we had seen it.

The majority of our New Years was spent partying with the kiddos. Cody and Chel had us over and they put on a little party for the kids. It was such a hit! We had dirt cups and fishy cups for the kids' treat, balloons full of confetti, noise makers, and a Netflix New Years Eve countdown so we didn't have to make the kids stay up late :) It was so much fun!

Of course, we can't go to Logan without going to the Jump Zone. Kaiser absolutely LOVES this place.

Snowball fights with Grandpa Lehman while he was shoveling the driveway

We were able to spend a good amount of time with our cousins. We had so much fun with them!

Chel and I had to take a prego picture together--this will probably be the last time we will be pregnant together. And this time it is special because we BOTH have littles that have the SAME due date! How crazy is that?!

My mom took us to the airport when it was time to go home...Goodbyes are never fun. I know that we can't always party with no work involved, but it is still sad leaving family and not being able to be close to them...

Kaiser and Grandma!

It never gets easier saying goodbye to family. My heart always breaks for Kaiser when he has to say goodbye to all of his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. But alas, one more semester and maybe we won't be as far from home?? One can only hope...