oh holy christmas...



Matt finished his finals on Dec. 12th. We stuck around LA for a few days and then left on Dec 17th for Lake Havasu City, AZ to visit Matt's mom. That morning Gaige decided that at 8 months he would start crawling. He ate breakfast and then crawled across the living room, into our bedroom, and then into our bathroom. He's pretty quick for a beginner! We left that afternoon for our 5 hour car trip. Unfortunately, it took us much longer to get there than 5 hours. The El Cajon pass was closed on I-15 causing a huge back up of standstill traffic for people waiting fot it to stop snowing. They crowded the freeway like a bunch of dorks and the people choosing an alternate route via the 21o were stuck. After 2 hours of sitting in the car we finally were able to exit the freeway by navigating through the dorks. It poured the whole way to Havasu and took us a total of 8 hours.



We had a fun time with Matt's family. His sister, Celeste, and her family came over for dinner. All of her girls let their maternal instincts loose as they played with, fed, and even bathed the boys! They defintely didn't mind all of the attention. We went to "Sandhill" and Matt created a sand sled out of a plastic bag for the kids to slide on. The boys loved being with their Grandma and Grandpa. Bentley couldn't get enough kisses and hugs from Grandpa Richard.






We stayed an extra day in Havasu to avoid bad weather and extra hours trapped in the car with 2 babies and headed for Utah on Dec 20th. It only took us 8 hours to get to Salt Lake where Grams and Grandad were waiting patiently to see the boys. Brick brought his kids up and Bentley was in heaven again being surrounded by so many cousins. Allison (6) let me know that she thinks Bentley is crazy which is exactly what Sophia (5),Matt's niece, said about him too.


For Christmas Eve Matt and I baked and decorated cookies and helped Mom cook dinner. Brick and Laura and their fam came over for dinneraround 5 pm. After dinner we read the Nativity Story, The Night Before Christmas, and the Christmas Orange story. Bentley ran around the whole time and refused to dress up like his cousins...his attention span is not very long! But he has decided that Grandad is his favorite and wants him to hold him all of the time, cuddle with him, and knows that hewill save him when Mom or Dad say it's time to go to bed.


On Christmas the boys woke up late, we were more excited than they were...they have no clue! By the time Matt brought them upstairs we had breakfast all ready (quiche, toast, and potatoes). While we ate breakfast Bentley and Gaige played with their new train set. It took a good 3 hours for them to open all of their presents. Bentley just wanted to play with all of his toys, and Gaige was just interested in eating the paper and bows while Bentley played with all of Gaige's toys. That night we drove to Brick's for dinner. And after we ate Bentley had so much fun playing with all of their toys. Alex even set up his drum set so Bentley could play them...so cute!
Matt and I got to snowboard twice while Mom and Dad watched the boys, our Christmas present from them. I went shopping with Mom. I went with Ann to get her ears pierced. Bentley and Matt built a snowman that looks like my Uncle Jimmy, and played in the snow. We visited lots of friends: Faith and Jared Nielsen, Shalee and Chet Blasucci, Burk and Kelly Glauser, The Infangers, The Staker Family, Becky Glosenger, and Jess and Trevor Hudson. We also went to the Temple with Brick, Laura, Mom, and Dad to do sealings for my Dad's family. I proxied for my Grandma Mildred Hilda North and my Aunt Peggy Power, very awesome. We had so much fun that I didn't want to come home. Matt made me leave on Dec 30th.
Allison and Rex Infanger

Faith, Jaime, Gaige

Nathan, Becky, Bentley, Gaige, Jaime, Elise, Catherine, Alex

On our drive home we stopped in Las Vegas to hang out with some of our favorite friends, the Morris'. It was fun to see them. They fed us and let us play with their pirate toys and trains. We finally pulled into LA at 8:30 pm and put our cranky bugs in the tub to relax. We kept them up till 10:30 just to make sure they were super tired and would sleep through the night. And they did. The first night in 2 1/2 weeks without a child crying in the middle of the night...hurray! (If you were wondering, we spent a total of 26 hours in the car with our little stinkers traveling and that doesn't include all of the instate traveling in Utah.)

This week Janni, Marvin, and Luke come to my parents' for 10 days so we will be MIA for the next little while. We'll also go visit Ryan and Joselyn to see their new home and go visit Matt's sister and her family. And Bentley will be reunited with his girlfriend Indi after almost a month without her!