We had hopes of visiting Hyrum's parents the first day we were there, Tuesday, but it started to snow and kept snowing and snowing. The storm dumped even more snow on top of what they'd already received the previous week. So ultimately, we postponed our plans by a day, and stayed inside to relax and enjoy the beautiful view of a white-covered valley.
Hyrum was actually crazy enough to get out of bed at 4-something in the morning and go running in the snow. He took this picture below. (I can think of a dozen other things I'd rather do when jetlagged than go running!)
Tiago built his first snowman with Grandma. First, Hyrum built him a tiny one (like 3" tall). Then Grandma pulled out her snowman kit and they built one as big as Tiago. He was so excited and looked at it frequently out the window.
We were able to go to Ogden the next morning. (During the whole trip, we kept commenting to ourselves how convenient it was that my parents own a van! We used to take up just a small part of it, and now we pretty much fill it up.) Abuelo and Abuela loved meeting the girls and Helaman and his family and Sariah and her family were able to come over, too. Tiago had a blast playing with cousins.
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| the girls' faces in this one... ^^ |
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| The snowy view on the drive back from Ogden |
One thing I'd really been looking forward to doing was eating sushi with my sisters. A few years back, I went with Amie. She ordered a lot of delicious stuff. And ever since then, we've made a point to always go out for sushi. I like going with them because they're much better at ordering sushi than I am and we always end up with the good stuff. (Hyrum hates sushi.) We all met in Salt Lake and had a great time catching up and stuffing our faces. We had a good laugh at the amount of lemons mom squeezed into her drink. It's shocking how quickly that much sushi can disappear.
That night we went to Doug and Laurel's [brand new-to-them beautiful] house to make gingerbread houses. The kids entertained themselves really well, so it was nice to catch up with the adults. Most of the family made an appearance at one point or another during the evening. My kids were too little to get into the houses, but Tiago happily sat and ate the candy. Then he showed off his crazy dance moves afterwards when they turned on some music. He really broke out of his shell. I guess I was having too much fun to get out my camera (or... maybe it was dead) but I only took one picture that night.
The days all run together for me now, but one or two evenings during the week people came over and we went out in the hot tub. It was great to have the kids in bed and really be able to relax. Last year when we were visiting, I was pregnant and couldn't use the hot tub. I was happy to not feel excluded from the party this year.
On Christmas Eve everyone came to Mom and Dad's house. [Minus Courtney and Peter, who were on a cruise with his family.] "Everyone" included 24 people,so it was basically an evening of craziness. The meal was delicious with tons of Martinellis--including a new pumpkin flavor which we thought would be awesome at halloween time. After eating, we acted out the nativity, sang a few songs and then had a long-planned visit from Santa.
Sometimes it's just easier to put the food on the floor and give the babies free access. And my mom, fortunately, keeps her floors WAY cleaner than I do.
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| The most serious Mary and Joseph. Charlotte is trying to figure them out. ^^ |
Back when we found out we'd be going to Utah, I told Matt he should dress up as Santa, because I thought Tiago would get a kick out o it. He was just starting to figure out who Santa was, thanks to a few movies on Netflix. Matt shrugged it off with a "maybe" but then it started to snowball and he couldn't get out of it. He threatened to be a silent Santa, so we bought him a box of HoHos to hand out. Eventually he did say a few things to the kids, and Jenna was trying to figure out who Santa was. It was a good costume.
Then the presents began. Basically, the second the kids got their hands on presents all order flew out the window. We just tried to make sure we didn't lose any babies in the shuffle of papers and watched all the ooh's and aah's on the kids faces as they built up their piles of toys. Tiago kept trying to take some of the other kids' little toys until we gave him one of his own. Plus, he had on his elf pajamas which were so cute on him I wanted to squeeze him all night. They're a bit small, so we boxed them away once we got home. He started saying "Kiss-mas" every time he saw a present, and kind of got the hang of it all.
Now that I'm looking back through pictures, I realize that I didn't take many pictures of Mila and Siena on their first Christmas. We were so excited to watch Tiago experience the holidays that we neglected the two littlest ones. But just in pictures. In real life, they had plenty of love and attention from their doting relatives.
Courtney and Peter had our names for Christmas presents this year. Since Courtney works at Blender Bottle, we are now the proud owners of several bottles. We also got a water storage container (boring, but it's what we asked for) and a pedicure for Hyrum and cd.
As a side note--Tiago got a kick out of the Christmas tree. My dad would hold him up and point to the star and Tiago would say "Estrella!" He also loved pointing at the other ornaments-- trees, stars, etc. There was another decoration in the entryway: a snowman and dog that sang jingle bells and danced. Tiago could stand there all day listening to it and dancing along. Really entertaining.
I convinced Jenna, Matt and Kayla to sleep over on Christmas Eve, so once the first party dissolved, the second party began in the hot tub. There were also a few rounds played of a phone-quiz-app called QuizUp. It's social while still being anti-social, which is kind of great.
We chose 8 am as the official beginning of Christmas, but by the time we dragged the child-less people out of bed it was a little later. I wonder what that would be like to sleep in... Anyway, we all got some great stuff. Tiago got some fun wooden toys (airplane and train) and boats, and clothes. The girls also got clothes, and musical instruments. We got a dutch oven and leaf blower, plus a helicoptor for Hyrum and several other fun things.
The week before we left on our trip, I got the idea to draw a picture for Tiago. He LOVES to get out paper and pens, but instead of drawing anything himself, he demands that WE draw things for him. He goes through his entire vocabulary: bus, star, boat, etc. So I wanted to put everything all on one page. It was a fun project, and at the end Hyrum suggested we laminate it. I'm not sure Tiago was really impressed when he opened it, but since then he really likes to sit and point at everything. It's fun to hear him identify all the things he knows, including "morsa" (walrus) and other random words like "pequena casa de perros" (small dog house).
There were a lot of presents, so we took a break with Betty's Brunch and the cinnamon roll tree. It wouldn't be Christmas without them! Hyrum and I didn't really get gifts for each other. We decided this trip was a good present to ourselves.
That afternoon we drove to Ogden to hang out with Hyrum's family. There was plenty more present frenzy and toys to play with. Tiago is so entertained by his cousins, who are particularly good with including him and making him feel important. That was fun to watch. Sadly, while hurrying up the stairs surrounded by cousins, he tripped and fell down an entire flight of stairs. It not only scared him to death, but he was hurt pretty bad, and had a big scrape in between his eyes. [Over a month later, and there's still a red mark there.] Tiago got a fire house, complete with a fire truck and ambulance. He loves vehicles with sirens, so that has been a big hit in the last month.
Tiago was very resistant to naps the whole trip, because there was so much going on. But he fell asleep several times in the car. If we ever drove to Ogden in the afternoon, it was almost guaranteed that he'd fall asleep. Once, he was so tired but wouldn't sleep, so Hyrum decided to drive him to the Bountiful temple. I don't think Tiago even made it to the end of our street awake.
Usually, the day after Christmas we spend shopping, but this year was a little different. We had big plans for the afternoon, so instead we went easy on the morning shopping. It was just Hyrum, my mom and I while the kids napped. The highlight was getting a scratch card in H&M giving us $75 of stuff for $25. Unfortunately, we didn't realize it until we were already in line to check out. So we had to go back and find about 50 dollars of stuff. We got a few things for the girls and winter hats, etc. I hate pressure situations like that: hurry, go buy something now! Sometimes shopping is fun, and sometimes it's not. (Hyrum, however, was loving it.)
I think I was equally excited for Saturday afternoon as I was for actual Christmas. Because: Maddox and Lava Hot Springs. We dropped the kiddos off with Hyrum's parents, and it was a wonderful child-free evening with a good mix of silence and adult conversations. No whining. The steak and rolls (and butter!) at Maddox didn't disappoint. Either did the raspberry cream pie. And the long drive to Lava was worth it to be able to soak in the hot water. Oh boy it was hot. I'm a whimp. On the way home, we stopped back in Ogden to pick up our three sleeping babies. Every once in a while it's nice to recharge.
By the time Sunday rolled around, I was spent. Of course we went to church (where the girls were really exhausting) but after that I was in the mode to lay on the sofa all day and do nothing. And talk to no one. (kind of.) Courtney and Peter had just gotten home from their cruise so they came over and spent the day. Fortunately, they were also okay laying around on the sofa. Hyrum took Tiago to Ogden to play more with his cousins.
That's a wrap on our first week in Utah. The second week was light on plans and heavy on relaxing.
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