Christmas

 Welcome to 2017!  Christmas break has been so nice.  My alarm clock was not so nice this morning.  This year, I especially missed the cabin.  :(  This was the last time we were there.  One of those things you take for granted and then one day, it's gone.  Oh well.  I'm just going to have to buy my own cabin.  :)

Anyway.  Clear back before Christmas we took the kids to Temple Square:

And decorated cookies:

 Are you super impressed with her bedhead?  I am.  This girl gets home and changes right back into pjs.  Not that I blame her.  This particular day, she had just woken up from a nap.

We had fun going to the kid's school programs.  Lu was so confident:

On Christmas Eve we enjoyed our afternoon with Nick's family:

Funny girl.  Perfect expression.

We had homemade tamales for dinner on Christmas Eve, as in Nick made them.  They were so yummy.  And not as difficult and time consuming as we had guessed.  That means we'll be making those more often.  Did I mention they were yummy?  Like, the best I have ever had.  Mmmmm.

Excited about their Grammy jammies, ready to go to bed!

Christmas morning was wonderful.  We loved having Uncle Nate with us again.  Here's some of my favorite photos from the morning:

 Yep.  Ukulele rockstars right there.

 She got her nail polish.  :)

 Uncle Nate is a more patient teacher than I.

We enjoyed our Christmas Sabbath attending church and then just chillin' at home.  The one day of the year that we snuggle in and just enjoy each other and new toys.

During the week we went to Grandma's and played in the snow with cousins: 

We did other fun things also, going to movies, going out to eat, taking kids out for one-on-ones, playing games, doing puzzles, reading, you know, the important stuff.  A highlight for me was this:

The original 6, together again.  I have known 4 of these ladies way back to when we were 13, but they really got to know me, and I them, when we moved in to Heritage Halls at BYU 20 (TWENTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!) years ago this coming Fall.  Their friendship continues to be a great blessing in my life.

We are party animals, as you know.  We spent New Years Eve at my sister's.  We watched the New York ball go down New York time, made lots of noise, and then came home and went to bed.  :)

Our last day of break we wanted to go sledding, but had no snow.  Right as we were heading out to go find some, it dumped on us.  Perfect!  We found a hill not far from home and had a wonderful afternoon together:

Today, back to life, back to reality.  Reality stinks.