A Very Merry December

I've mentioned before that we have General Conference traditions like staying at home in our pajamas and eating certain foods. This month we watched the Christmas Devotional and as soon as President Monson came to the pulpit I said, "Kallie look! It's the prophet!" Her response: "I want to eat cheese balls!"

This is what we did in mid December:
















This year we flew to Idaho for Christmas with the McGary's. We gathered for Thanksgiving in 2011 right before Kyle left on his mission and this year for Christmas right after he got home. We took three flights and two layovers to get there. It went fairly well considering Brad, Kallie and I weren't feeling the greatest and Jayda is the wiggliest little gremlin you ever saw. We only checked one big suitcase but had to travel with three carry on suitcases, a car seat, two backpacks, and a diaper bag. We took the double stroller for the sole purpose of carrying luggage through airports. Running to the van from the Idaho Falls airport was SO cold! Literally the SECOND we buckled Jayda into her car seat she fell dead asleep. Kallie followed shortly thereafter.

The Rexburg, Idaho temple where Brad and I married 5 years ago! Brad took this picture with his phone. Rexburg was a beautiful winter wonderland when we arrived. All the trees were covered in crystallized snow.

We arrived in Idaho a week before the rest of Brad's siblings. We're glad we did it that way, because we spent the first part of the week recovering from flying and then drove to Salt Lake for the second part of the week. We stayed with Brad's brother Tyler. We went to dinner with our friend/my roommate from BYU-Idaho, Courtney (or 'Corndog' to us!) at a super yummy restaurant called Zuppa's. We forgot to take a picture with her! I'm so sad.

This is not Zuppa's. These are random pictures from Taco Bell.

We saw my friend Noelle and her two boys (the same ages as our girls). It was so fun watching the kids play together. We saw the new City Creek Mall across the street from temple square and it's so big and pretty! We wanted to see the temple square lights too but it was SO cold and late (according to baby time) so we skipped it. We saw Andrew and Lauren from our ward in Boise (they live in the same apartment complex as Brad's sister did years ago) as well as Brad's cousin Rachel and her gorgeous little family.

When we got back to Rexburg I was worried Kallie would have a hard time sleeping with her cousins in the family room because she'd be too distracted or something. She was the first one to fall asleep! I woke up at 4:30am with a bad stomach ache and shortly thereafter puked for the next seven hours.  Ughhhh it was awful. After it stopped and I had an ounce of energy to leave my room, I learned our nephew Jarom came home sick from church. During the next three days 19 out of the 22 people in the house caught the stomach bug. Even Trent, who lives fifteen minutes away and therefore didn't stay overnight at the house, caught it from coming over for ONE hour on Christmas Eve. That makes 20 people.

Amenities at Hotel Grandpa & Grandma McGary include personalized towels.

Cousins watching a movie in Grandma & Grandpa's bed

Brad and Tyler got sick the same night and had a puking contest from two bathrooms right next to each other. Brad neglected to close the door or turn on the fan so it was a loud performance for the audience sleeping downstairs. We had to reschedule snow day at Aunt Sandy's house because of the plague. The first day the whole healthy family enjoyed together was Christmas morning (minus Trent's family in Rigby because they were still sick). But it was wonderful day.

We were yet again pretty lax this year at teaching Kallie about Christmas and Santa. We focused on preparing for our trip. We didn't put up a tree because we left halfway through December. I've even considered not doing the "Santa" thing because I want to focus more on Christ but I'm sure we'll end up doing it next year. Kallie's still little and has no expectations for the holiday so we bought a bunch of dollar store gifts for her and Jayda right before Christmas and they both loved their gifts.

When we got back to Florida we gave Kallie a balance bike and a couple other things we didn't wanna take on the trip. She hasn't had many chances to ride it because it's actually been cold here! We brought Idaho's temperatures back with us.

We reserved the chapel on Christmas day for celebrating our niece Madelyn's birthday and playing games.

7 years old!

A pony pinata!

Brad made a mini golf course in the Relief Society room


Throughout the trip Brad and the teenagers saw Frozen AND The Hobbit. We went sledding on a great hill in Rexburg. Swimming at Green Canyon Hot Springs. Aunt Sandy's house in Driggs for a snow day. Brad's parents work at the temple on Saturdays so all the couples attended an endowment session with them. It's always fun to go back to the temple Brad and I were sealed at for eternity! It's a gorgeous temple.

Porter, Kyle, Dustin

Locked and loaded for sledding

Kallie, me, Mikayla

Uncle Jim took us on a horse drawn sleigh ride

Kallie and Ariana

Getting ready for the couples snow mobile adventure (plus 3 teenagers)

View from the snow mobile trail

Uncle Jim took us through the woods, up a mountain and to a water well overlooking Driggs on one side,

and Targhee ski resort behind us

Dustin's rad hair:






Jayda walked up to us at Grandma & Grandpa's house with bulging cheeks and Brad pulled 14 beads from her mouth.

Wearing the dress from our Norwegian relative 

We recieved a gift of peppermint hot cocoa and marshmallows. When we got back to Florida we put the cocoa on ice cream and it was SO delicious. We ate ice cream every night until the gallon was gone. This happens every time ice cream is in the house though.

For the record, this is yogurt. We don't let our children eat ice cream every night.

Kallie: Daddy's getting hair jelly.

Kallie: I want to go to Chick-a-lay!

Backwards hat is the cool way to ride a horse.

Ariana and Kallie

A small portion of the blonds in this family

The igloo Brad and Boyd made

Decorating cookies

I daresay none of these were done by Kallie...

So pretty!

We flew home on New Year's Eve and it couldn't have been a better experience. Jayda slept on all three flights (in my lap!). I said this on Facebook and I'll say it again because it is true to my heart: Airports with indoor playgrounds are God's gift to parents.

Kallie: The lion gonna eat my socks. 

We spilled soup on our kitchen rug so Brad rinsed it out, put in the washer and I found it a week later covered in mold. After this picture I opened it to look at the inside and it was 10 times worse. Don't worry, I threw it out.

Wearing her new hat from Grandma & Grandpa

Brad caught Kallie and Jayda being cute in the back round

Kallie's feeding Jayda!