December & Christmas

Our family has had a blast in December. We continued our tradition of riding the TRAX train to downtown to see the Christmas lights. It was a freezing cold night, but everyone had a great time. We even brought hot chocolate in a thermos to enjoy midway through the night.

Riding TRAX

We love to see the temple.

Warming up inside the visitor center at Temple Square.

Visiting temple square is definitely a family favorite.

Christmas Eve . . .

Grandma & Grandpa Lewis & Gr. Grandma & Gr. Grandpa Johnson came up on Christmas Eve, and we enjoyed dinner together and participated in a Christmas program the kids prepared.

Excerpt of Christmas program.

Christmas . . .

All of the kids but Tadd were awake on Christmas morning at 6:15 a.m. They were patient and waited until 6:45 a.m. before their parents woke up. They just couldn't hold off opening their presents any longer. We started opening presents without Tadd, who we thought might end up having his own private little Christmas this year, but he eventually woke up while we were still opening gifts. His last present was an electronic dog that Teya gave him. You'll have to watch the video of Teya's excitement when the gift was open, and Tadd's expression when Teya was faster than him to grab the dog to show him rather then letting him take the dog out of the box. Although it didn't show, he really was excited, but probably just wasn't sure quite what was going on.

Christmas morning (6:45 a.m.)

Tadd wakes up with a bear hug.

Tadd (Teya) opening Tadd's gift

We spent the rest of Christmas day enjoying our gifts. Cara & Teya played with their Webkins; Kyle played with an R/C helicopter and a car that drives up walls. Jeremie took the kid's sledding. We also had fun with the web camera Grandma & Grandpa sent for video conferencing.

Kyle and his helicopter.

Kyle's car really does drive on walls.

We're having way to much fun with the web camera. Why would anyone want to use the regular setting when the "Fisheye" setting is so fun?

Enjoying the outdoors on Christmas day. . .

Holly abandoned her snowboard for us to sell. Cara and Kyle made sure it worked.

Day After Christmas. . .

On Saturday after Christmas, we had a fun day at Hogle Zoo. We basically had the entire zoo to ourselves. Though many animals were unviewable inside heated rooms, the animals that were out seemed to be more active than what we've seen at other times of the year.

We learned our hand isn't even close to the size of a gorilla's.

(Do you know why gorilla's have long fingers? . . . . Because they have big noses.)

Up close with the animals in an uncrowded zoo.

Geoffrey the giraffe snuck into one of our pictures. . . What a joker.

Enjoying our hot chocolate, a regular on our cold outings.

We finished the night going out to eat, giving mom a break from preparing dinner.

Teya and Tadd shared a Kid's meal.