Dinner with the Johnsons

We had the great opportunity of having dinner with our friends who we haven't seen for 2 whole years! It was so much fun to finally see Heidi, Craig, Owen and little Kent (for the first time). Max loved having friends over and still asks about them days after they were here. Thanks for taking time to visit us! We sure loved it!

Max thought it was so funny to watch Craig give Owen zerberts

Cabin and Christmas

We were able to go downtown for the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas concert and it was so great! We rode trax downtown with my mom and dad. It was a wonderful concert, but my favorite part was the organ solo. That Richard Elliot sure knows how to play that organ. He did an amazing solo of "Sleigh Ride" and it was amazing! My other favorite part was hearing Tom Brokaw tell the story of the Candy Bomber, who happens to be my best friend Heidi's grandpa. It was such an amazing presentation! We also got to enjoy the Pearson Family party the same weekend. 
We made our annual trip to the cabin and it was fun as usual! Max was a little moody, but overall it was a great trip. He really liked riding in the "airplane", or the snowmobile, with Molly. It was just a great time to relax and be with family!

battling cars with Doug

Max and Molly

On Sunday, we got to spend some time with my family and have our annual progressive dinner. We started at mom and dads, then Dave and Nina's, Mike and Mischele's and ended with dessert at Cynthia and Chad's house. I really love being with family this time of year! It is the last Christmas we will spend with everyone, because the grandkids will start going on missions this year!  

This a recreation of an old picture, I'll have to get the old one and put it on here for comparison. So funny!

 We had a wonderful Christmas this year! It was a white Christmas, which is always great! We went swimming in the morning and had delicious breakfast for dinner on Christmas Eve. Max loved the pancakes and said, "mmm...I love them." He also said some form of, "best pancakes i've ever had". It was so cute! When we were saying the prayer on the food, Max kept eating the pancakes with his eyes closed. Such a funny boy! We opened jammies and watched "Joy to the World". In the morning, Max came into our room and he kept saying it was Christmas. He must have remember that I told him it was going to be Christmas the next day because I don't think he understood what was downstairs waiting for him. When we walked down the stairs, we told him that Santa Claus came and he went over to the tree and was looking for him in the tree. Once he saw his toys, he was gone. His favorite thing was a pirate ship. We opened presents and Max helped us with most of them. Then we headed over to the Patterson house for breakfast and more presents. We were super spoiled, especially Max. He got some Winnie the Pooh and Finding Nemo figures. He loved putting them in and out of a paper bag and showing them to everyone! Then we headed to Draper to see Nana and Granddad. It was a mad house as usual, but awesome to see everyone! We are super blessed and I'm so thankful for this wonderful time of year that we can celebrate our Savior. I am so grateful for my wonderful family and for a rambunctious 2 year old who is starting to understand stuff and I love watching him have so much fun!

opening jammies

Happy with his daddy!

This is what Max does when he wants to see the picture you're taking, but you end up on getting a good one because he is squirming too much...

coming down the stairs

Christmas morning picture

No more family pictures!

poor Lilikoi

Checking out the calendar

Showing everyone his toys

Hot chocolate from Nana

Daddy's little buddy

Max loves his daddy! He loves to stretch with him after runs, read with him, be his helper and just hang out. They are my favorite dynamic duo! Max probably wishes daddy could play with him all day long!

Zoo lights and temple square

This year we were able to go to Zoo Lights at Hogle Zoo. We sort of crashed a double date that Katie and Cami were on, but Max is cute enough that it's no big deal. We actually didn't really even see them so it was ok. It was really cool to see all the lights, I think I thought we would see more animals, but silly me for thinking that they would be awake and have lights shining on them. They were still cool and actually I've never seen the big cats so awake. The bats were awake too, but they're kind of icky. It was a great family adventure!

Max loved the elephant and giraffe

giving the giraffe a hug

We also wanted to make a trip downtown to see the lights. We found out the new frontrunner train was going to have a free ride day so it our "perfect" plan we were going to ride downtown, get onto trax and go to City Creek and to Temple Square. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened but there were WAY too many people with the exact same idea. We had to wait for the train in the freezing cold for 1 1/2 hours. When we finally got on the train, we were not in seats by a window and there were a million people everywhere! Plus, we were right by the bathroom so there were even more people by us than usual because they all had to go to the bathroom after waiting for so long! We finally got downtown and there were just people everywhere and it was snowing and so cold. We did everything we planned on doing, but Max wasn't really in a very good mood, so that made everything harder. Going back home was insane! George and Max got on the train before me and I couldn't find them once I got on. Luckily, I was standing by some funny people so it didn't stink as bad. I was finally able to find them after people got off in American Fork. It wasn't a super fun day, but it was definitely an adventure! We will probably try the train out again someday, but it might take us a while.

Waiting for the train

Staying warm on the bus while waiting for the train

Notice the millions of people on the train

Picture of all the people shoved into a small space, it only got worse as we kept going

Max entertained us all by catching snowflakes on his tongue. It was pretty cute!

This is at the Riverwoods