Christmas

For Christmas this year, we went to Denver to be with our Easton family. In the past, we've flown on an airplane to visit family since everyone is so far away, but the cost of 4 planes tickets (since Connor is now 2 years old) was ridiculously expensive. So we drove to Denver instead.

Dallin found our snack stash very quickly and began asking for cheetos.

 We divided the 16 hour drive into two days. Day 1: four hours from Indiana to St. Louis. We stayed with Grace and David, my childhood best friend and her husband. Dallin and Connor loved playing with Hannah, their daughter.

We left early the next morning to drive the rest of the 12 hours to Denver. Dallin and Connor had a blast playing with cousins for two weeks.

Judd (seen below, center of the picture) just turned three so he is right between Dallin and Connor. These three had so much fun together and caused so much trouble.

They played xbox and ate all the chex mix.

They jumped on the trampoline on the warm days.

 They played the piano.

Connor loved Grandma and Grandpa's dog, Sammy.

He followed that poor dog everywhere and wore him out daily.

 On Christmas Eve, we played with all the cousins and watched some movies.

Before bed, the boys got to open a special present:

 pajamas that I made just for them!

I sewed some easy flannel pants. For the shirts, I used a freezer paper stencil and fabric paint on a plain t-shirt. Super easy, but the boys were so excited! And I let them choose the pants fabric themselves, hence the trains on Connor's pants.

 Now to explain the boxes of fruit snacks in the picture above (and below): we filled their stockings with some cookies, assorted fruits and a box of fruit snacks, which happened to be at the very top of the stocking. The boys woke up on Christmas morning and I showed them their stockings while we waited for everyone to get ready and gather by the tree. They reached into the stockings and pulled out the first thing: fruit snacks. They both got so excited and started jumping and cheering, "Yay!!! Fruits snacks!!!!!!" And then they marched around the house, still cheering and showing off their fruit snacks.

I think we could have taken back all their other presents and they would have been fine with getting only fruit snacks.

They eventually discovered the other goodies in the stockings. 

Then the present opening began.

This Lego wrapping paper (from my parents) was a big hit.

Connor got more train tracks.

He's saying, "Choo choo!"

 Dallin got Star Wars pancake molds.

He thought these were so cool and carried them around with him all day. We waited until we got home from Denver to make some pancakes with them, but the wait was worth it. The pancakes looked awesome!

 Dallin got a lot of Star Wars themed presents. And he loves all of them.

He got a Darth Vader t-shirt and a Darth Vader Lego alarm clock. He carries it everywhere with him, wants to sleep with it like a doll, and has no idea what the numbers on Darth Vader's belly mean.

Another favorite of Connor's presents was a dump truck.

He has a lot of love for this truck.

We all had a really fun Christmas and loved all the family time. Dallin and Connor were happy about the constant supply of cutie oranges at Grandma and Grandpa Easton's house.

I was happy that they learned how to peel the oranges by themselves and that Dallin's orange eating foray wasn't just a one-time thing.

More posts to come on our adventures in Denver and our epic journey home through Snowmageddon!