We did our traditional trip to Utah to spend the Christmas vacation with family. Some years it is quite the debate about where we should go when and whose house we should visit at what time. Coordinating our schedules with the rest of our families schedules can be quite the ordeal sometimes. But this year did not seem to have the usual stress that it has in the past (thankfully). We have our favorite traditions and things that we enjoy doing so we tried to do what worked best for our family and we had a great time visiting and sharing the holiday with family! Since we had Magnolia with us this year and because she is still so little we did end up skipping out on some of the bigger family parties this year so as to try avoid some of the sick germs that are bound to be spread around in large groups. And thankfully none of us got sick during our vacation. Christmas miracle! Of course we all got sick 2 days after, but at least we were at home in our own beds by that point.
This year we started out our Christmas trip on December 22nd. I met McKay after work and we drove down to my parents house in Salt Lake. Santa ships all of the Christmas gifts to my parents house so we needed to go down a couple days early to get everything prepped for Christmas morning. We spent the 23rd doing some last minute shopping and lots of wrapping. McKay and I had fun shopping together and we may have bought some last minute things while at IKEA. That store is crazy!
The evening of the 23rd the Christmas fun started with the Fry family Christmas party. We LOVE this party and it is always SO fun. White Elephant gifts, food, nativity story, and this year Santa made an appearance. My kids are at the perfect age. They were so excited about this whole evening. They loved being Mary and Joseph during the nativity and they liked opening the presents during the White Elephant gift exchange. They were completely in love with Santa visiting Great Grandma Fry's house and really thought his reindeer were on the roof. Too fun!
Jensen was trying to see if he was the "real" Santa ;)
Christmas Eve started out with a trip to Provo to visit McKay's mom. We brought some Einstein Bagels, because I love them and I can't get them in Idaho. We had a little breakfast with her and then we opened a few gifts. She even built a little fire for Jensen in the fire place which he loved. He asks everyday to go camping and have a camp fire so it was pretty awesome for him. The weather was really nice that day so the kids were even able to run around a bit outside. One of our presents to her was a puzzle so we pulled it out and got started on sorting the pieces. I have never finished an 1000 piece puzzle and after helping her sort pieces I am not sure that I ever will. Wow that takes a lot of patience!
After spending the day in Provo we went back to my parents house for the evening. Corinne, Stu, Solomon, and my grandma came over as well. We had a quiet evening hanging out, eating snack food, and playing games. My dad decided to not do his traditional gift of PJ's for everyone this year so instead he did a treasure hunt for the grandkids (new tradition maybe?). The surprise at the end of the treasure hunt were cute kid sized camping chairs. Everyone had fun following the kids around the house as they found the clues. My dad used to make treasure hunts for me and my sisters when we were young so it was a fun memory to be reminded of that evening. After the treasure hunt we did a short Christmas performance (very short songs and stories) and then the kids watched a Christmas movie in their new chairs.
Matching baby cousins! It is so fun having babies at the same time as your sister!
Christmas morning we had church at 9 am so we decided to not open gifts until after church. The kids still got to come upstairs and see the presents. They even got to open their stockings, but they had to wait to open the rest of the gifts until later. Jensen struggled the most with waiting, but still handled it fairly well. Sacrament meeting went great and the kids were not too wild (small Christmas miracle).
This of course was Magnolia's first Christmas. She was a such angel during our whole Christmas trip. She slept wonderfully, enjoyed all the noise around her and loved being held all day long. It was wonderful to have her with us!
After church the unwrapping began. It was crazy! Yes it was! Not terrible, just crazy. The kids did really well with taking turns until the end when they just started unwrapping any present in sight. This year I discovered that my kids are at the age where they LOVE opening presents. Especially Jensen. They pretty much did not care what was actually inside the present they just wanted to open it. So they opened Magnolias gifts, Solomon's gifts, grandma's gifts. Anything and everything. Their excitement level about the actual gifts was fairly low. Jensen was pretty upset when all of the gifts were opened and I was a little irritated at him for not being more grateful for the gifts that he got. But after thinking about it I realized that he really just enjoyed opening presents and it wasn't that he didn't love the things that they got. I think Declin gets the award for the cutest reactions Christmas morning because we was just so excited about all the new toys and started playing with them right away. Adalyn got the make-up that she had been hoping for so she proceeded to give makeovers to all the ladies. Even great grandma Fry. The make up made her Christmas morning and she was content the rest of the day. Jensen liked his toys, but really just wanted to open more presents or have daddy open the new bike that Santa brought. Sadly since it was snowing outside, we decided to leave the bike in the box so he was a little disappointed about that. Magnolia slept through her first Christmas morning. :)
This year for Christmas we decided to give each child 3 gifts. One from Santa, one from Mom and Dad, and some books. They also drew names for a sibling gift that they each picked out. Santa brought one group gift for all the kids to share and a stocking filled with treats and a little toy as well. McKay and I also got the same number of gifts. This system worked great for us this year and I plan to use it again next year.
Here is what everyone got for Christmas 2016:
McKay: New backpack to take to work, wallet, growing lamp and pad for seed sprouts.
Kajsa: Printed blog books from 2014 and 2015, new outfit (my first pair of leggings), and new kitchen towels.
Adalyn: Makeup (in her stocking), boogie board, a small electric piano, and silky Elsa pjs.
Jensen: New bike, kids camping tent and lantern, and remote control car
Declin: Duplos, car rug with parking garage and cars, and toddler bingo game
Magnolia: High chair, teething toys, and clothes
Their group gift was double DVD players for the van since our old screen broke and a movie to go with them. Long car rides just got easier!
We also all got special gifts from our parents and Corinne and Stu which we loved and are so grateful for! It was a fun Christmas!
After presents we had a nice Christmas lunch and then packed up to go to Evanston to see McKay's Dad and mom.
In Evanston we opened presents and the kids had a ton of fun playing with Maka and Cade. I love seeing Maka and Adalyn play together. They are the cutest little friends/cousins. Cade and Declin had fun too and they fought over toys a lot as well. While in Evanston we got to meet baby McKenna. She was born at the end of November and she is just the tiniest little thing. She is the final baby born in the family for 2016. 7 babies in all!
We stayed Christmas night in Evanston. What a fun few days we had celebrating Christmas with family. McKay and I both love Christmas! We love being able to see family that we don't normally get to visit and sharing fun our fun traditions with our children. I hope you all had a great Christmas as well. I will share the rest of our holiday vacation in another post!
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