Catching Up: Christmas 2009

Wow... where to start? I guess I'll just try and catch you up on a little bit of what we've been up to. It won't be pretty but I don't want to forget everything, so for my journal's sake please bear with me.

A quick note on Svea (more to come on her in my next post): before we left for Utah she was already an avid roller. I caught her in her bouncy chair like this one afternoon and since then she has to wear the safety belt (I don't think we ever had to use that with Soren).

We left for Utah on an early morning flight on December 16th. My sister Stephanie came to pick us up at the airport. Svea was excited to finally meet her aunt Stephi!

We spent a few hours at my parents house while Steph drove back to Provo to take care of some errands and pick up my other sister. It was nice for the kids and I to recover from our trip with a much needed nap. Svea finally got to try out some of her cool weather clothing.

When Jenny arrived, Svea was again very excited to meet another aunt. It was

kind of funny to see Svea react with tears - she is usually very social and soon got over her fear of her aunties.

In all the driving, Steph's car misplaced a hubcap. We called a local dump and asked if they had any hubcaps. They told us there was a chance, so Steph and I headed down to check it out. Hubcaps? Yea, right. Most of the cars had no tires, let alone hubcaps. We had to laugh at our first visit to the junkyard.

My parent's flew in from Japan on the morning of the 17th. We spent a couple of nice days hanging out and decorating for Christmas. Svea was exhausted by all the attention and the cold weather. Her cheeks get so rosy!

Soren especially loved the Christmas trees this year. He helped my mom decorate the snowman tree as a warmup to decorating the tree we would find in the mountains.

For several years my family has gotten a permit for a Christmas tree in Idaho. My mom's parents live an hour and a half north of Pleasant View in Riverdale, Idaho, so we go there to find a tree. This is the first year I've been able to go in a long time, and it was the first time for Erik, Soren and Svea. Steph had to go back to work, but my mom, dad, Jenny, Jake & Mekelle were also able to go this year. We drove up into the mountains from my grandparents house and snowshoe off the road until we found the "perfect" tree. We celebrated by taking lots of pictures and drinking hot cocoa. Soren helped my dad cut down the tree. We stopped at my grandparents' house for a yummy dinner before heading home to decorate the tree.

Svea and her cousin Bridget got all bundled up for the trip up to Idaho.

Svea all bundled up for the trek:

Soren and Daddy:

Soren the snowman:

A little too much cocoa???:

Timber!!!

After a busy Saturday in the mountains, we woke up Sunday morning and headed to Draper to spend some time with Larry and Kristen. We spent a few nice days up at their home. We went to Temple Square on Trax to see the lights, played in the snow and watched lots of football and Wallace and Gromit episodes.

Yes, this is a blurry picture but it proves we were there!

Soren catching some snow:

The snowman

Soren enjoying a root beer float:

We also were spoiled by a few gifts before we left. Soren's favorite gifts were a delicious can of cheese from Wallace:

And a new Leapster2 from Papa that he fell asleep with that night:

After the nice visit with Erik's family, we headed back to Pleasant View on Christmas Eve to see a little more of my family. My entire family was able to get together this year for both Christmas Eve and Christmas day. We had our traditional delicious Christmas Eve feast and program. Then we all opened up our Christmas jammies.

Svea is a natural at gift opening:

The matching babies and their matching daddies:

The girls:

Christmas morning was so much fun. The little kids made the day. We were all spoiled rotten.

Svea opening a gift:

Soren was very excited!

Soren was excited by all of his gifts, but I think the best reaction was to the bowling set. He has been using a toy basketball and plastic cups to bowl at home for several months and LOVES playing bowling online with his aunts. When he peeled a little paper back on his new bowling set, he started breathing fast and gasping, "my bowling, my bowling!". He got right down to business - I've never seen him concentrate so hard on ripping paper off of a present before. It was so funny. We are going to get a lot of mileage out of this bowling set!

After a nice relaxing Christmas day, we decided to go sledding and spend some more time out in the snow. I love this picture of Erik - I was trying to get an action shot of him in the air, but I think this face is hilarious. He was sore the entire drive home.

Erik headed home on December 27th, but the kids and I stayed at my parents' house until January 5th. We had lots of fun visiting with family.

The kids took a nap together and when they woke up, Soren begged for a "photo shoot":
We got some more snow:

We were able to attend my dad's parents annual New Year's Eve party. There was lots of good food and good company. I was surprised that Soren was immediately drawn to the toy guns at the house. He's never really played with them before. I had to laugh when he dragged this rifle over to where some of my cousins were playing RockBand and started strumming on his "guitar". Guess I don't have to worry about him being bloodthirsty yet!