{Merry Christmas}

Okay, I know I am a few days late for Merry Christmas wishes, but the thought was there earlier and I was too lazy to get on and post it! Sorry! I also want to say thanks to the Becerra's, for letting us be a part of the Christmas Eve get-together. We love to see you! Well, here is the story of our Christmas Day.

Christmas this year was a blast--well, mostly. It dumped over a foot of snow at our house on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. We were pretty much snowed in, since we couldn't get out of our garage. We woke up early and Isaac ran to the tree to see what Santa had left for him. He was so excited! Eli slept until after 9:00am, so he missed all of the fun. Oh well, he's only 6 months old--he didn't really know what was going on, anyway. After opening presents we were supposed to have David's dad over for breakfast. We got a call that he was stranded less than a mile from our house due to getting high-centered on a median that had been covered in snow. I'm telling you, it was a blizzard out here. Anyway, so David went and picked him up and brought him back to have breakfast. The only thing I could think about was that we were going to end up being late to Juan and Lisa's house to talk to my little brother, Zach. He's been in Mexico, on an LDS Mission for nearly a year now. I was sick to my stomach at the thought that we wouldn't make it. So, I called my step-dad, Juan, and let him know what was going on with the weather. He assured me that they would conference me in so that I could talk to him from home. Whew. What a relief. David, Isaac and I all had a chance to speak to Zach and it was great! So, then we left to take Jerry home and visited Juan, Lisa and my other little brother, Caleb (I should mention that it had only snowed a teeny, tiny bit in Murray--what the heck?) I feel bad that it was such a rushed visit, but we always seem to have so much to do on Christmas, and so many places to be. It would be nice to be able to just stay home and have everyone who wants to see us come here instead of us running everywhere. Anyway, then we went to David's mom's house and had a wonderful, but rushed, Christmas dinner. We then headed home around 5:00pm to get ready for my family to come over. We hosted my Dad, Rondi, Ramsi, Stoker, Tyler, Dolly and my two nephews. We missed Branigan and Julie and little Beau, born on December 22nd! It was a fun night, with lots of food and presents. I just love Christmas. I will post a picture of the entire family in our matching Christmas PJ's as soon as Ramsi forwards them to me. I'm sure they are great! Here are some cute pictures of our Christmas...
Isaac--after opening all of the presents from Santa.

Isaac with his "loot". Some of it, anyway.

The Grandson's in their matching PJ's. Little Beau has a matching pair of PJ's too! What cute little boys--wouldn't trade them for anything!


Isaac and Eli lounging together on the couch.

Eli and his cute little smile (and David's arm).

Aunt Ramsi made these adorable, reversible capes for each of the boys. She even made one for Eli and for baby Beau. They are super cute and the boys loved them! Thanks, Ramsi!

{The Polar Express}

Saturday we took a ride onThe Polar Express at the Heber Valley Railroad in Heber, Utah. We wanted to take Isaac on it last year, but were unable to get tickets. This year we ordered our tickets early! For those of you who don't know Isaac very well--he is obsessed with trains! The Polar Express is one of his favorite movies that involve trains and he watches it often. He has been counting down the days and has been so excited that we were going to go this year! This week I found some pictures of a Polar Express ticket, similar to the tickets on the movie. I made some adjustments to the picture and was able to print tickets to give to Isaac and his cousin, Jonathan to take on the train with us. They were thrilled! The tickets looked great and they were the only kids on the train with 'real' tickets! The ride was a lot of fun! It was a much longer ride than I had anticipated--close to two hours long. We were given hot chocolate and cookies, we sang songs, read the story of The Polar Express and looked for the 'North Pole' and Santa out the windows of the train. When we got to the 'North Pole', Santa boarded the train, and since we were on the last car the boys waited excitedly for Santa to make his way to us during the ride back to the station. Finally, Santa was in our car! I couldn't believe how excited the boys were! I thought they were going to cry! Santa went to each child and gave them a special Christmas bell. It was the best! Here are some pictures of the adventure (lots of pictures)! Thanks Grandma Rondi and Grandpa Brad for sharing this adventure with us and for helping keep Eli happy so David and I could take pictures and video of this experience.

Here are Jonathan (my brother's little boy) and Isaac with their special tickets. On the other side it says, "The Polar Express" and "Round Trip" with a picture of a bell and some holly.



Grandma Rondi and Eli. I'm not sure why I cut my dad out of the picture. Sorry, Dad!


This is the part where the boy are anxiously awaiting Santa's arrival. They are standing on their seats and their eyes never left the door of the train car.


"There he is!!!!! I see him!" That is what they were saying when I took this picture. It is hilarious! Don't they look like they are so excited that they might start crying? I love it!



Santa walking down the isle, giving bells to each child and saying "Merry Christmas! Ho, ho, ho!". The boys couldn't wait for their turn.



Santa and the boys.


Here they are after getting their special Christmas bells. Check out Jonathan's expression! Hee, hee!


Here they are after the ride was all over. What a fun adventure!

{Oh, Christmas Tree}

On Saturday we put up our Christmas tree and most of our decorations. Isaac thought it was awesome and was obsessed with getting the star on top. I kept telling him that it would be the last thing to go on the tree, but for some reason he was worried that I would forget. So, he carried it around with him until it was time to put it on the tree. Here are some photos of our day. Yeah, we pretty much stayed in our PJ's the entire day. It was great!

Isaac--holding up his precious star.


Isaac and Eli in front of the finished tree. I am not sure why I cut off the top of the tree in this picture. Sad. For those of you wondering why a BYU fan would have a red tree, all I can say is that blue doesn't really go with our home decor, but notice the large BYU ornament front and center on the tree. Go cougars!


All I can say is, poor Eli. Isaac isn't the most gentle kid in the world when it comes to holding his brother. Isaac is pretty excited, though.