Christmas in Utah

Our holiday season was absolutely fabulous! I'm going through some serious depression right now trying to revert back to normal life. I'm missin' the fam and friends more than words can say. I need to snap out of it, ASAP.

I wish I would have taken more pictures. I have quite a few, but the quality is so, so. Maybe next year I'll get a nice camera from Santa :) .

Our vacation started with a horrendous drive. I decided to go 5 days earlier with the kids so I could go to the David Archuletta/Tabernacle Choir concert with my fam. Jason joined us later in the week. We left our house and hit extreme LA traffic only one hour into the trip. Not cool. We were making our way to Aunt Shellie's house in St. George. The trip should only have taken 7 hours. It took 9.5 hours. As soon as the traffic let up, Benny started screaming. Rock on.

When we got up the next morning and started driving from St. George to Layton, we realized our good friends, the Sares, were on the road, too. They actually started their trip less than a half an hour before us the day before and they stopped in Cedar City for the night. So, we decided to have lunch with them in Beaver.

Here's Graham, Audrey, Caleigh and Lucy at Lassen's Diner. All of the kids were excited about the fry sauce.

We finally made it to lovely Layton. I had an incredible time with Beth, Heidi, and Mom at the concert. David didn't disappoint and the Tab Choir was great, too. We were hoping for a little more David, a little less choir, but oh well. It was a fun night out.

The rest of the week up to Christmas was spent playing the Wii (I think Graham punched in at least 3 hours a day. Don't judge, I was on vacation), last minute Christmas shopping, and just hanging with the fam.

Christmas Eve was fabulous. We had an amazing meal with almost as amazing company. Here's almost all of the kiddos in their costumes for the program:

George, Graham, Lucy, Ben, Abby and Ollie.

Thomas and Freddie were indisposed at the moment. George, Graham, and Lucy were the shepherd for our Nativity. They really got into their characters when it came time to be afraid of the angel.

Cute Ben wanted in on the photo action.

Here's me and my sistas singing, "Oh Hush Thee My Baby". We sing it every year as part of our Christmas Eve program. Apparently we're all too cool to make eye contact with the camera.

Lucy sang a couple songs for the family this year. In this picture she's singing "Little Stranger". She learned it in her music class she's been taking this year.

Had to include this picture just because I love me some Jason Herman (Beth's husband).

After our fabulous program, which included many a musical number from members of the fam, we opened up our jammies.


Graham and George in their matchies.

Abby and Lucy in their matchies.

I'm ticked that I didn't get our annual picture of all the adults in their pj's. Bummer. Somewhere in there we had our pie for dessert. Jason made one of our faves, Kentucky Pie, for the event.

Here's Lucy in all her Christmas morning happiness.

She was so happy and grateful to see that Santa granted her all her wishes. Here's her list:

-a pocket watch (gold on the outside, blue, purple and red on the inside)

-a red, heart-shaped locket with diamonds on it

-a diamond shaped crystal necklace

-Orbeez

How's that for specific?? Let's just say Santa had to improvise a little and Lucy came to understand that Santa has a lot of kids to think about and custom orders aren't always filled to exactness. She got a gold pocket watch, but it had purple flowers on it. She got a heart necklace with diamonds, but it wasn't a locket and she got the diamond-shaped crystal necklace, too. As well as the Orbeez. She was happy.....Santa was relieved.

Graham was so much fun to watch Christmas morning. I was worried about the ratio between Lucy's number of gifts and his. Ridiculous to even have thought about it. He was thrilled with everything and just wanted to play. Santa brought him a train set, a couple light sabers, and a couple other things I can't remember. Graham's wish list changed daily or even hourly, so Santa went with his gut.
J, Lucy, and the pocket watch.

Ben-O claiming his new tunnel tent thingy.

We had big plans for Christmas day. My uncles and their families were going to join us for dinner. They decided to stay home after we told them about the stomach bug we were passing around at Mom and Dad's house. We still had a houseful with my little family and my siblings coming and going with their families. It made for a fun, relaxing day.
Ella and Heidi were so tired, they took a little nap on the couch together.

Benny had his first haircut on Christmas morning. I absolutely LOVE that Shellie spends Christmas with us every year. It would be weird if she wasn't there. It also made it very convenient for her to put an end to Ben's mullet days.

My two adorable nephews, Frederick and Thomas. Benny was given the same jammies, but he was way too cool to sit and pose with his peeps.

"Happy Holidays!" Love, Blaine

On Sunday, we went out to Eagle Mountain to spend the evening with the Ray family. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so no pics. We enjoyed visiting with them and had a great dinner.

Later in the week, Lucy spent the night at Jamie's house (Jason's sister). The next day Lucy proudly told me she stayed up until 1 am and slept in until 11 the next day. The Ballesteros girls know how to party!!

We loaded the family up and made our way to Logan for Wednesday night. It was the day a storm hit, so a 1 hour drive took 2 and 1/2. It was worth it, though. We went to a USU basketball game with the Wrights and Grunigs and stayed overnight at Tanna and Jed's house. Good times.....no pictures to prove it, though. Thanks for having us, Grunig fam! We love spending time with all of you!

Thursday night was spent at the Perry home visiting with their fam, the Wrights, and the Kameraths. I thought the kids looked cute sitting there at the table.
Funny Graham

Trent, Jason, Benny, Joseph, Tami

Tami, Kalleen, ME, Lichelle (great friends, lousy picture)
I was so grateful that Lichelle and Trent opened up their house to all of us. I really enjoyed visiting and catching up with everybody. We love all of these families!

We were back with my fam for New Year's Eve. We took the kiddos to the store and let each of them pick any treat they wanted to share. This tradition dates back to the early Hickman days when we went to California most years to stay with Aunt Bev and Uncle Jim. Jim would take us to the grocery store and let us get whatever food we wanted for our New Year's party. We thought it was the coolest thing ever. We limited our crowd to one thing per kid, but they still thought it was awesome.

Lucy has a tough time with decision making, so this was rough. She finally decided on some Chocolate Chips Ahoy cookies with M&M's. We had quite the assortment. Gushers, AirHeads, sour gummy worms and StarBursts.

Here's Abby, Ella, and Heidi checkin' out their options.
I think this picture is hilarious! George is such a crack up. He was absolutely soooo excited about his Gushers. Graham held on to another box of Gushers for a while, but then settled on a 5 lb. bag of sour worms. I had to talk him into 2 smaller bags instead.

We went home and played a few games of Spot It with the kids (a new game the Grunigs introduced to us). Then we sent the rugrats downstairs to watch movies while we partied upstairs. We played a few games and ate way too much fondue (an assortment of deliciousness dipped in chocolate or cheese).

I love this picture, too because if you look close, you can see how annoyed Lucy is. She fell asleep about an hour before midnight and she wanted Abby to wake her up. She was sooo irritated by every noise. Notice the folded arms.

Jason, Josh, and Beth ringing in the new year with some sparkling cider.

It looks like we're a couple of drunk chicks with Beth's cup next to her face. But, aren't we cute?

What a fun trip! Our holidays are always pretty busy and we pack a lot into 2 weeks, but we are always glad we make the trip. There's been times when we've gone back and forth about whether or not we will go home for Christmas. But, seriously, I can't imagine spending the time here without the extended fam. Although, maybe I wouldn't have to deal with this gloom that stays with me for a few weeks after leaving.