Christmas in the Evergreen State

Like most years, we once again treked up to Washington to spend Christmas with my family. We love going there are and always have tons of fun. It really means a lot to me to be able to spend such a special holiday with my family since I don't get to see them that much. I was especially grateful for the chance for Lydia to spend two weeks with my side of the family. Some of the fun activities were getting horribly lost on the way to Mulbacks, a ponsettia nursey. While in the midst of being lost, Lydia choked on a snack and proceeded to barf her whole breakfast on me and the van and then scream her head off until we became un-lost. After we got over that traumatic incident we enjoyed ourselves in front of this Christmas tree made entirely of ponsettias.We of course re-enacted the Christmas story. Ryan, Scott, and Kenny were the wiseman. Don't you just love the bowl, sweatband, and necklace as crowns?

I thought Kayleen fit the perfect description of an angel with her blue crown, and multi-colored wings attached to a white dress.

Here we see Sadie as Mary, Brigham as Joseph, and Lydia as baby Jesus. I am not pictured because I was the narrator and the photographer.... VERY important jobs. I thought the dog bed did a good job acting as a manger filled with hay.

This is Brigham and Lydia Christmas morning. Yay! Lydia's first Christmas. Unfortunately Lydia also had her first cold this Christmas and was not at her best. Crabby, full of snot (which she loved rubbing all over me), and tired don't mix well. I'm glad she won't remember her first Christmas and I'm hopeful the years to come will bring better ones for her. This is the happiest picture we could get of her that day. If she looks like she's about to break out screaming ... she was.

We were able to go to one of Scott's lacrosse games and see him score a goal. It was cold but tons of fun. I loved seeing him play and wish I could go to all of my siblings games considering I have four of them playing lacrosse this year!

This is Lydia and I at Scott's game.

Lydia received an adorable pair of mittens and a matching hat from my Aunt Sandy for Christmas. She actually let me put them on and kept them on. Even though she had a cold, learned how to spit out food and shot peas at me like bullets, became a rebellious child already, wouldn't eat, and coated all of my clothes in snot, it was so fun to show Lydia to my family and to spend our first Christmas with her.

I didn't get all the pictures I wanted. I wanted one with us as a family and one with my parents in the T-shirts I made them with Lydia but these will have to do. Overall, it was an awesome trip. A few more things we did include: we saw two movies, went to Body Worlds, spent a night in downtown Seattle- just Brigham and I, played lots of Wii, and just had some good family time. Oh yeah, and we ate... A LOT. Now that it's over and as I get back to reality and not getting to eat junk all the time, I miss Christmas already :)