Denver

On the Monday after Christmas we loaded in the van and started the drive to Denver.  We were spending time with family for the New Year's holiday.  We started pretty early and the kids were so excited that I don't think they slept much the night before.  The kids rarely sleep in the van but this is what we saw when we looked to check on Courtney:

Some activities we did while in Denver were: family run (Grandpa, Bryan, Lisa, Julie and Courtney), shopping (Ethan wanted Bronco's stuff), swimming at the APEX, family pictures...

...tons of little boy cousins following Ethan around to ask his "expertise" on Mine Craft....

...Courtney getting her Clara baby fix.....

...Ethan getting his Clara baby fix and learning how to hold a baby without panicking....

..and tons of time with family.  There were more babies but a lot of the family had been sick before we showed up so some were sick and some just didn't like being held by strangers.  It was good to meet new little ones and see other we had seen before.

Courtney and Brook slept under the stairs and had fun being the oldest girl cousins together. It was a fun time.

Christmas Morning

The kids woke up early and were excited to see what Santa had brought.  Bryan put the overnight cinnamon rolls in the oven to bake while the kids looked at their loot.

Aren't those amazing looking cinnamon rolls?!

Courtney's and Ethan's stockings:

Our stockings (we always get a new towel):

Santa brought us all Fit Bits for Christmas.  I was really excited.

Courtney handed out all our presents so we could have our piles.  This makes it easier to unwrap presents quickly...more effccient.  Ethan was happy with his pile.

This is Bryan's pile:

Courtney had so much fun unwrapping presents.

Can you tell she liked what she got?!

Ethan got an airbrush so he can paint his models.

Courtney got a new soccer ball.

We all got a huge box full of BYU gear.

My family came over a little later in the morning and we got to open a bunch more presents.  We had a great Christmas!

Christmas Eve

We had a fun Christmas Eve.  Bryan went to work in the morning and then came home in the early afternoon.  We had been invited to Don and Kathy's house for dinner.  It was fun to see their family.  

The kids were a bit sad that we weren't doing our usual pizza under the Christmas tree tradition so we picked up a pizza on the way home so Courtney could get the pizza taste before bed. ;)

We went through our usually Christmas traditions...we played the chimes, made cookies for Santa, read Christmas stories...

...opened our Christmas pjs, read "The Cremation of Sam McGee," and then got ready for bed.

Christmas pjs:

Courtney decided she wanted to sleep in Ethan's room so they could get up early in the morning.  Ethan has a chair in his room that is like a bowl so Courtney slept in that with a bunch of blankets.  She said it was comfortable.

More Light Sabers

Ethan decided he needed to compete for the "coolest cousin ever" award with his younger Pack cousins.  So he decided to make the little boys their own light sabers.  We had a bunch of PVC pipe in the garage so Ethan cut it to a good size for little guys and then we hung them on the line so he could spray paint them.  We went to Home Depot and bought more spray paint (so each one would be a different color), glow in the dark duct tape and some black duct tape.

Ethan spent the next day spray painting the PVC pipe hanging on the line.

When they were dry, we put the duct tape on the ends and then they were ready.

They glow!!

Temple Lights

We went to the Temple to look at the Christmas lights and the Nativity display.  It was cold and we didn't prepare too well but we had hot chocolate so that was great.  We had to take the traditional arch Christmas light picture of the kids.

In the visitor's center they had a huge display of Nativity pieces from all over the world.  It was really cool to see them all.

We love to see the Temple.

Light Saber

Ethan was bored during the break so he decided to make himself a light saber.  He actually made 2 of them because his first was out of a cardboard tube from the middle of wrapping paper.  We figured it wouldn't last long so Ethan made one out of pvc pipe.  He even painted it.  I love it!

Fiesta Fun

Courtney won a $25 gift card to Fiesta Fun.  She wanted to take her best friend, Sammie, with her to have some fun.  She was also using it as Sammie's Christmas present.  So one day during the Christmas break we picked up Sammie for a fun morning.

We got to Fiesta Fun as soon as it opened so we wouldn't have to wait in any lines.  The girls found Santa and had to sit on his lap:

We decided to play "Skittles" bowling first.  We got a lane and then I had a big bag of Skittles with the rule sheet.  Before each time they bowled they would have to put their hand in the Skittles bag and whatever color they pulled out would determine how they would bowl.  One color meant they had to bowl in a different way.  For example, one color meant they had to spin around before they bowled.  Another color meant that they had to bowl granny style, etc.  They had a great time!

Ethan didn't bowl with us because his toe had just been fixed and he didn't really feel like being goofy with the girls.

They had to take a picture with the huge polar bear.

After we finished bowling, Courtney had some money to play some video games.  They had a lot of fun going around playing while we waited until it was our time to do laser tag.

Ethan had fun playing some video games also.

Ethan found a glitch in the Pac-Man game...it didn't require any money to play it.  So he hung out on that game for a long time.

After video games, it was time to play laser tag.  They had a lot of fun with the group they were with.  Ethan won and the girls did a great job too.

We were finished but we still had some coupons left for free stuff.  So we went to Zeppe's.  It's a frozen Italian icee place we hadn't been to before.  They were so good but they were HUGE!  Ethan was in heaven and the girls had a lot of fun watching him enjoy eating.

It was a fun day!