Christmas 2011

For Christmas this year, we were able to spend a lot of time with both sides of our family! It was awesome!

To start off the festivities, we had a Christmas dinner with friends (at Heidi & Dave's house) on the 23rd. It was so nice to be able to have everyone together in one place!

Our first family photo since Charlie's newborn photoshoot:

Everyone and their kids... I can't believe we have 7 kids among just 5 couples already! And I'm sure it will continue to multiply!! ;)

Then, on Christmas Eve, we went to T's parents' house to spend time and exchange gifts with all of his siblings and their families (minus Mical who lives in Las Vegas). I didn't get any pictures of the occasion other than this one of Meghan's family:
Then, early on Christmas day (like... 6:30am) we flew out of Salt Lake and landed in Raleigh, NC around 4:30pm. It was definitely an experience flying with a 2 month old (Charlie turned 2 months on Christmas day!), but it actually turned out to be a lot better and easier than I thought it would be. We have a really sweet baby, and for that I am soo grateful! The only hiccup was a major diaper blowout on the second leg of the flight back to Utah... who knew that those tiny airplane bathrooms had changing tables!??!).

After landing in NC and eating a delicious dinner with my parents and brother, we got to open lots of presents! One of the best gifts we received was the start of a ceramic nativity set--the same exact set that my mom and all of her siblings have. Theirs were hand painted by my Grandmother (Mom's mom), but she has since passed away, so my wonderful mother spent the time to paint all of the pieces by hand (with all of the amazing intricate details) as close to how Grandmother did it originally. I was so excited! In the picture below, you can see T holding Joseph, and I have the cow. We also got Mary, baby Jesus, the manger, and a donkey... I believe that's all for now, but eventually I will also have shepherds with sheep and the wise men with camels too! Such a BEAUTIFUL nativity... I can't wait to display it next year :)
Then, all of the extended family from my Mom's side began to arrive (her three siblings and their kids). Here are the two youngest of my cousins, Lauren and Meredith, getting to play with Charlie:

And now... the moment you've all been waiting for... let the Charlie pictures begin!! Haha! My Mom (Kimma) and Dad (Bebop) are probably two of the proudest new grandparents you'll ever meet. And they took tons and tons of pictures of our cute little man. There's way too many to put on this blog, so I picked just a few of the best to display!

Bath time

Cute reindeer bum!

Charlie & Kimma

Charlie & Bebop

So many faces...

Santa Charlie... such a cutie!

One of his favorite places to nap... I can't get enough of those cute little sock feet hanging down!!

A few days later, after everyone from my Mom's side had gone, we traveled a couple hours west to Albemarle (where both of my parents grew up) to see my Dad's side of the family - his parents and his two brothers and their families. We ate delicious food and enjoyed the company.

All the cousins on my Dad's side (plus Charlie & T)

Everybody together!!

Everyone during the trip was SO generous with the sweet gifts they gave to Charlie. He is seriously SPOILED ROTTEN... being the first grandchild/great-grandchild/nephew/great-nephew... etc etc on BOTH sides of my family.

We arrived back in Raleigh on New Year's Eve with just enough time to hit up a couple of New Year's parties. We partied so hard that Charlie was a little wound up and had a rough night that night... I guess he just didn't know how to make the party stop.

The rest of the trip was nice and relaxing. I got a massage, and we just hung out as a family and enjoyed each other's company. When it was time to go home, I was ready, but not ready... all at the same time. I definitely was not excited to get back to "real life". And I knew everyone would miss us (well, mostly just Charlie, haha) when we were gone.

I hope everyone else had a Merry Christmas (and I'm so sorry it took me over a month to blog about it!!).