Wintertime in Utah

Kari had a nice long break over Christmas, so we decided to spend a couple weeks in Utah. We had such a good time seeing family and friends. We miss everyone so much! But before we made our trip out to good old Utah, we got together with friends down here and made gingerbread houses :)

 Ashley and Brett. We had no idea until this night that Ashely was such a perfectionist!

 Myles and Heather. Their kit had the cutest little people in it!

 Our house :) In comparison, our house is pretty lame...but in our defense, we were the only ones without a kit!

 Kari made a cute little woodpile out of cut up Twix bars. He's so creative.

He really wanted a snow-fort made out of marshmallows :) Super cute

Then we made our way down to Las Vegas :)

 New York, New York

I tried getting both our faces in the pic...didn't work out too well.

We stayed at the MGM Grand :) It was fun!

 My camera skills worked this time! I got us both in the pic. So proud of myself.

Gotta love the M&M Factory! We spent $15 on a bag of m&m's...what a joke! But it was still cool :)

Then we made our way up to Utah.

We went to temple square with my mom's side of the family. It was so pretty!

All bundled up :)

hahaha...um? ok?

Sisters :)

Hello Dylan's head

 Oh little man, I love you!

This is how we spent much of our vacation - coloring pelon people for the flannel board Shawn and Mary Carol got us for Christmas. It was so fun and we can't wait to use them when we have kids! (In lots of years...)

Family dinner rocks!

Bugged that Kari wouldn't stop taking pictures...

Mary and Joseph :)

The little angel loved baby Jesus :)

Angela was also an angel. I think the role fit her perfectly!

Kari's sexy face :)

Still playing with baby Jesus...

Kari's new book!

Shawn's new book!

Gnome-be-gone we gave to Mary Carol and Shawn for Christmas :)

My new buddy, Tommy the USC bear!!! So cute!

The boys' new aprons

We did France as the country for Christmas Eve dinner this year. Kari and I made the Three King's Cake all by ourselves :) There were two beans placed within the cake, and whoever found them was declared the King and Queen of the day.

I found one :)

Annnnd Kari found the other!

What a coincidence!!

We went to the Hicks' house next. Gingerbread house making time once again!

Needless to say, we spent a little less time this time around :)

Brooklyn's hotel

Dad's crazy good house! Piping, a walkway, a chimney, a snowman...he went all out!

Little man's sweet house :)

Dylan and Kari spent lots of time playing golf

They were all sitting on the couch taking silly pictures...

so of course I wanted one, too!

Opening up sibling presents on Christmas Eve

Brooklyn made us a USC blanket!! How sweet is she :)

All of our homemade blankets :) Brooklyn worked hard this year! Mom helped, too, of course!

Our Christmas pj's

Christmas morning! Waiting downstairs. Yes, we all slept in the same room...and no we barely slept at all.

Come on, dad! Blow the horn already!

Kari checking up on his sports before running up the stairs to open presents!

Pido is ready to go!

Mom had the big present in the middle of the room.

Copycats :)

The presents :)

Brooklyn's UFO

So stoked about my super cute new watch

I might have cried a little about this present....

He made me this board! With the help of his mom and Angela. I love it!!!

We both got new watches :)

Going to church

The amount of snow was ridiculous!

The snow blew up to the door and made a wall! I thought it was hilarious.

 New Year's Eve!! We went with the Hicks' to a hotel overnight with a water slide! We played games and hung out. It was so fun!

Sweet pose, mom

We got our bubbly...

and our noise makers! We were ready to go!

The boys concentrating hard on the TV...

Dylan hung out in the room like the whole night watching House...what a party pooper! Oh well. We all went to Denny's for hot chocolate after midnight, which has been our tradition for about 14 years!! It was so much fun :) Great start to a new year!

The Hick's Family Christmas Party is always interesting!! Parker got a blow up bikini for his white elephant gift!

 

My lovely present was my father's face on a posing half naked man....ya that's why my face is as red as my sweater...

Some man dressed as Santa riding his motorcycle with a Santa helmet. Awesome.

Zoo Lights :)

Alligators at the zoo

That's all! We came back home, stopped in St. George on the way to go through the temple there, and now we are away from the snow! I laid out at the pool yesterday and I'm going to the beach with friends on Tuesday. Gotta love Cali :)