We are Family

My family braved the 24-hour drive from Texas to come visit me during the holidays.  My parents and two of my younger siblings came up a couple days before Christmas, and my other brother and his wife arrived Christmas day.  They all stayed almost 2 weeks, and it was so much fun having them.

It pretty much snowed the whole time they were here, and they were all freezing their butts off.  They kept referring to Utah as "hell" because it was so cold (my family moved away from Utah when I was a kid, because they hated the cold so much).  We mostly just spent time together relaxing, eating food, playing games, and of course snuggling with Gavin.

One night we went to Temple Square so we could see the lights before they went away before the New Year.  It was so pretty there, but it was bone chilling cold.  We didn't last long before we decided to leave and get some dinner on the way home.

Robie got my dad tickets to a Jazz vs Clippers game.  My dad was SO excited to go, and they had so much fun (even thought the Jazz lost).

For New Year's we celebrated by making an assortment of appetizers for dinner while we played card games.  And of course when you're married to a pyro, no holiday is complete without blowing up a ton of fireworks.  I think we gave the whole neighborhood quite the show with how many we had.  Even our friendly snowman in the back yard got to celebrate when my siblings decided to blow him up with firecrackers.

I guess it was just all too much for my boobs to handle, because at the end of the night I looked down and saw this:

My little brother, Nate, will do almost anything to make money.  This gave me a brilliant idea.  I told him I would give him $10 if he laid in the snow and did a snow angel for at least 10 seconds...naked.  Okay, I agreed that he could wear his underwear, but it was still just as funny.  We even got it on video for blackmail later.

Jaxon loved all the attention he got from everyone, and even now he won't stop asking about his "Omee, Papa, Nate, Hads, B, and Tia".

My family stayed through Jaxon's birthday, but eventually they had to go back home.  I'm not going to lie- it was hard for them to leave.  They came at the perfect time when I was struggling trying to juggle two kids, and when they left it was really hard for me to get back in the groove of doing everything on my own.  I am just so grateful they all had safe travels back home, and I can't wait until the next time we can all get together again.

LOVE YOU GUYS!