Christmas Eve

I love Christmas! It seems like it is always over way too quickly. I am so happy we get to travel home to Utah each year for Christmas. I treasure the time we spend with our family and friends. We first celebrated on Christmas Eve with Dad and Sharon. All of us got together at their house for a yummy lunch and lots of presents. Then, James and Lisa were off to California to spend Christmas with Lisa's family and we spent the evening at the annual West Christmas Eve Extravaganza.

I couldn't pass this picture of Ryder up. He is such a little cutie! (He doesn't make many of the cousin pictures yet.)

Christmas Eve dinner with my West cousins is a family tradition. We always have a delicious Christmas dinner, followed by the next generation of cousins acting out the Christmas Story while it is read from the Bible. This year we had a puppet show while Makayla read the Christmas Story. (Mike cut Makayla out of the above picture. I was back stage helping our little performers.)

After all the parties, we came back to Mom's to open our one present on Christmas Eve (which is always new PJs, of course. I thank my dad for that fun Warnick tradition!) Then, we set out cookies for Santa, left carrots for Santa's reindeer, and read The Night Before Christmas. Finally, three excited children tried to sleep while anxiously awaiting Santa!

Warnick Winter Weekend in Midway

If these faces are any indication of how our weekend of family fun went, then we must have had a great time all together! We spent a fun-filled weekend in Midway with all of my family at my Uncle's house. Thank you, Uncle Bill! We took advantage of all the snow in Midway sledding at Soldier Hollow and doing some extreme sledding of our own in the backyard. The kids had a blast playing together and we all had fun watching movies and playing games.
The Warnick gang's all here!
Mike, Brandon, Jeanette, Ryder, James, Lisa, Andrea, Emmy, Chase, Jalinda, Savannah, Brooklyn, Mom, Makayla, Brynnley, and Logan
Sledding in the backyard on Mike and Brandon's extreme sledding hill off the deck.

Logan, Brynnley, Makayla and crazy Aunt Jeanette. Oh and there's a side of Brandon's face.

Only these two could pull off such a cute wipe out!
Baby Ryder didn't get too much snow time.
Tubing at Soldier Hollow was so much fun! Our first run down the mountain, we shot down so fast I thought for sure we were going to die! I frantically made sure Logan and Savannah were still alive when we reached the bottom. I soon realized they were fine when they both starting screaming simultaneously. They didn't think plunging down the mountain at record speeds was as fun as Mike and I.
The best part of tubing that day was the free ride you got back up the mountain!

Above: James and Lisa and Jeanette and Brandon getting their tube on! I think the big kids might have had a little more fun at this family activity.

Chilling in the lodge, waiting for the grown-ups to finish tubing.

Let It Snow. Let it snow. Let it snow.

The first thing we did when we arrived in Utah for Christmas, was play in the snow! Since it snowed the entire time we were there, we had plenty of opportunities to take advantage of all that snow. The kids were so excited for snow, especially Logan. They had so much fun sledding, making snow angels, building snowmen with me, and constructing an igloo with their dad.

Our snowman and snowchild. The girls helped me make our snowman and Logan built his "snowchild" all by himself, with a little help from mom.

Makayla and Logan in the field by my mom's house in front of the temple.

We had a blast sledding down the side of Mom's house into the field. Growing up, we always played in the field when it snowed. It was a perfect place for Dad to pull us sledding behind the 3-wheeler. Do they make those anymore? Hmmm . . . that dates me.

Savannah's first snow angel!

We stayed out for quite a while. Look at those rosy cheeks!

Makayla, the extreme tabogganist

My ambitious husband filling tubs with snow to build

"The Igloo", his masterpiece!

Savannah loves to be Daddy's little helper.

The finished product!

3 Kids Very Excited For Santa!

We look forward to our ward Christmas party every year. It's so much fun to get together with our friends for dinner and the kids love to see santa and tell him what they want for Christmas.

Not So Silent Night Concert

Are we too old to go to concerts? Not yet! We had so much fun with our good friends the Barlows at the Not So Silent Night concert last month. It was an all night event starting at 4 PM with six bands playing. We missed the first band and caught the tail end of the second act, but enjoyed the tunes of the next four bands: Metro Station, Gavin Degraw, Boys Like Girls, and Blue October. My feet were killing me by the end of the night from standing and jumping so long, (Note to self: do not wear high heeled boots to an all night concert) but it was worth the fun Mike and I had at the concert! It was fun to do something we don't normally do for a date, and the music was great. Boys Like Girls is one of my favorite bands and Blue October's sound was amazing. Metro Station struggled, and we were pleasantly surprized by what a great show Gavin Degraw performed--very entertaining! FUN NIGHT!!!

BOYS LIKE GIRLS

BLUE OCTOBER

GAVIN DEGRAW