Snuggling the Weekend Away

This last weekend I got to go and visit Niece and Kira and more importantly Celes and Hazel.

Celes had already passed the Great-Aunt inspection with flying colors.

And this weekend it was time to see if Baby Hazel had what it takes to join the family.

She is pretty darn cute.

I did have to listen to a little bit of this.

But after spending most of my weekend like this:

She passed the test.

And then it was time for me to come home again.

You wouldn’t think it would be so hard to take a picture of 3 women and a baby. Well, you would be wrong.

I am so glad that my kidlets could spare me for the weekend so I could go spend some time with a sweet little baby, oh and those other people that live there.

It was worth getting on a stupid plane and dealing with the no frills airline .

It was pretty nice coming home to 5 happy kidlets and one cute husband.

And the next day they spoiled me on my birthday.

Gotta love a cake covered in all the candles in the house.

Oh and maybe the next time I go up there I will remember to bring a real camera so I can take real pictures.

Celebrating the Season

The Christmas season is over. Want to see how we celebrated?

I knew you would.

On the 19th we had 21 family members over to help us celebrate Christmas. We had dinner and then had the kiddos act out The Nativity.

Roo was Mary and Nathan was Joseph.

LaLa and Taylor were angels and Ham was our shepherd.

Einstein, Big J and McKay were the wise men. Poor McKay thought that once he turned 18 he would be free of Nativity duty, but noooooo.

Here I am reading from Luke 2.

It was fun having so many family members together.

This is what our Christmas tree and the mystery string of lights ended up looking like. Every day was a surprise for me when I turned them on, I never knew whether the lights would be working or not.

On the 22nd we loaded up the Subooboo and headed north.

It was very odd to drive through Flagstaff in December and there wasn’t snow.

This is always my favorite stretch of highway. The long open road ahead of us.

And beautiful cloudy skies.

Ham enjoyed the drive

We finally crossed into Utah.

We tried to make as few stops as possible and made those stops as quick as possible…which included fast pull-up changes.

We weren’t very far into Utah and we ended up in this…and I just happened to be driving. Ugh.

Then we drove through rain and more rain and fog. Until we got to this sign.

And then we had more yucky snow.

It was nice to finally get there and be off the roads.

Finally Christmas Eve was here.

In honor of Sergio and the traditions of Argentina we had fireworks. They decided to have them at 8pm since that was midnight Buenos Aries time.

It was a little chilly

After the fireworks we headed back inside. It was freezing cold and notice that Big J came out without a coat. Silly boy.

Time for the highlight of the night:

Christmas Eve Bingo

Since Josh was spending Christmas Eve with Ali’s family Derek had the HUGE responsibility of running the bingo show.

The heap of gifts just waiting to be picked.

I ended up with the first bingo on the first round…and the last one on the second round.

Kirk guarding his jabber-wokky from someone trying to steal it.

Ham is fascinated by the baby growing in Kira’s tummy.

The night ended with Aunt Niece reading Luke 2.

The kidlets went to leave reindeer food for Rudolph and the gang. And while they were out Pickles showed up with his Christmas Eve gift.

The kidlets were so excited.

And here are their new jammies…not sure why I had them kneel. Oh well.

Finally it was time for the BIG SHOW:

Christmas morning.

Here are the kidlets heading up to see what Santa left.

Niece had her whole family here for Christmas morning…plus us.

The kidlets are always so relieved that Santa finds us in Idaho.

This is Sergio’s first Christmas in the states and since they don’t celebrate Santa in Argentina his first Christmas morning with presents.

Kira is holding one of the best Christmas gifts…too bad she won’t be opening it for a few more weeks.

The best part of Christmas?

Watching Celes celebrate her first Christmas.