Christmas Day

On Christmas morning, we woke up and waited on the stairs with cousins to go open presents at the Martin's house.  With kids, that stuff all happens early in the morning, so after that we went up to Salt Lake with my family for our traditional Christmas morning brunch.  This is one of my favorite things about Christmas morning and I definitely ate a ton.  After brunch, we opened presents and then watched the kids play together with some of their new things.  Then back to the Martin's so that the girls could take the afternoon naps they desperately needed.  Once the girls woke up, we headed back up to Salt Lake for an extended Smith family Christmas dinner with all of my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandma.  There wasn't enough room at anyone's house for everyone so we did it at my parent's church up there in the gym area.  We had a huge, delicious dinner, opened more presents, and visited with relatives that we don't get to see very much.  It was a fun time!  We unfortunately had to end the night a little early again though to take Claire to the urgent care.  She was still sick, inconsolable, and had only eaten about 3 ounces in over 24 hours.  After getting her to finally drink a bottle of pedialyte, she ended up being okay and gradually got better over the next few days.

 Lucy had the best reactions when opening gifts this year.  I loved it.

 Ryan got me an OPI gel nail kit.  It's been so fun to have.  I felt like a little kid on Christmas because I had a "toy" that I wanted to open right away and play with. :)

 Lucy and Lynnlee giving each other hugs.

 I loved the pictures we got of Lucy with her great-grandma Smith.

 My extremely talented and crafty mom made all of these cute stockings for her grandkids.

 Lucy and Ashlynn had tons of fun opening presents together.  They got a lot of similar toys, which was fun.

 I know these are just a ton of pictures in a row of Lucy with pom-poms, but I have to add them all because her reaction was so awesome.  My mom hit the nail on the head with this gift, apparently.

 Too much excitement for Claire.

 Lucy opening a Santa gift with grammy.

 Doing nails during nap time.

Most of my aunts/uncles/cousins from the family dinner on Christmas night.  My parents did such a great job with decorating and food, but I still have to get more pictures of this from Lisa.

Christmas Eve

The morning of Christmas Eve, we got ready for the day at the Martin's, put the girls down for naps, and then headed up to Salt Lake to be with the Smith side.  We went out to dinner like we always do, and were planning on seeing lights at temple square but had to cancel that because a few people weren't feeling well and it was super cold outside.  So we went back to Lisa & Brandon's apartment and did the rest of Christmas Eve.  We all opened up comfy new pajamas, sang Christmas songs, watched a Christmas movie, and had some treats.  Also, Lucy had a ton of fun playing around with her cousins, especially dancing around in their new pj's and getting excited for Santa to come!  Unfortunately, I could tell that Claire wasn't feeling well and wouldn't really eat, but then she got really sick and threw up several times.  So after cleaning it all up, we headed back to get the girls in bed.  Sick babies are so sad.  This little incident cut the night a little shorter than we would have liked, so we missed getting a picture of everyone all together in their new pajamas and a few other things, but overall it was still fun and we have good memories from it!

Some of the girl Martin cousins: Lucy, Amyah, Susie, and Lynnlee

 Out to dinner at Olive Garden with my family.  Lucy and Ashlynn definitely look related!  They got along really well and had fun together.

 Modeling her new pajamas!

 Reading a new Christmas book with Grammy.

We got back and washed off poor Claire and put her right to bed.  The rest of the kids were just about to throw out their "reindeer dust" and so Lucy joined in on that before going down to sleep too.

Snow fun and Danish pastries

The first day we were in Utah it snowed a ton!  It was a beautiful winter wonderland and it was Lucy's first time really playing in the snow.  She LOVED it.  The Martin's have the perfect backyard for kids to play in the snow- we could even go sledding without leaving their yard!  This also happened to be the day that we made the traditional danish pastries with Ryan's family.  It was a good start to our trip!  And now, 5,000 pictures of Lucy in the snow because she was just so happy being out there that I couldn't pick just one.