Charlotte - Day 4

New Year's Eve was full of errands, cooking, napping (poor Dan and Trish had been up most nights with sick kids during our visit) and games. All the kids were awake to welcome in the new year and enjoy some sparklers and cinnamon rolls (or gluten-free brownies:).

Happy New Year!!

We played card games, Wii, and read some books while we waited for midnight.

Most of the gang right after midnight.

I love sparkler pictures. Here are some of my favorites.

Charlotte - Day 3

Day three brought some fort building for the kids and shopping for the adults. Dallin and Taylor were kind enough to babysit for us while we went the the mall. We did some shopping and then Ed and I met a friend for lunch and Dan and Trish had a lunch date. We met up again for some more browsing and then headed home.

Taylor decided to teach them the fine art of the "cousin pile". It's her favorite way to get all the cousins together for a picture! (Dallin is too big to pile on these little guys - he cheered from the side)

Izzy is just so adorable.

Jonah, Cami, and Courtney

The kids were inspired to build a fort and quickly made plans to sleep in it that night. They had a great time and spent many hours inside giggling and telling each other stories. Trish thought that Jonah just didn't look quite right and sent him to sleep in his bed. Sure enough, the stomach virus took effect a few hours later. Poor guy.

Ah Ha! We knew you weren't asleep. What gave it away? The crazy amount of laughing coming from under the sheets!

They did finally fall asleep - so cute!

Charlotte - Mountain Biking

Ed and Dallin brought their mountain bikes to Charlotte. Ed is really enjoying being able to go on adventures with Dallin. There are tons of trails in North Carolina and they found a few at the park where we were geocaching.

Ed sent me a few pictures from his iphone.

Charlotte - Day 2

Poor Courtney got the stomach virus from Izzy and had to stay away from everyone on day 2, but we tried to have some fun without her:( We visited the Gold Mine and were able to go on a tour of the museum and the actual mine. The kids thought it was interesting and we had fun. Tricia was a trooper after being up with Courtney all night.

Down in the mine pathways. I can't imagine working in a place like this before electricity!

Izzy was really glad that we brought back rock candy for everyone. Can you tell?

Charlotte - Day 1

After Christmas, we drove down to Charlotte for a visit with Dan and Tricia's family. Izzy had some stomach issues and traffic was pretty bad on the way, so we just spent the first late night in a hotel. The next day everyone was feeling better, so we started the cousin festivities. Tricia has been waiting to introduce us to geocaching. I knew Taylor would LOVE it and she did. Tricia and Taylor share a competitive and adventurous spirit and later in the week they left the rest of us behind to do some serious searching;) It's a nice hobby for families. You can wander around parks using your GPS and clues to find the treasure (or maybe just a happy meal toy:). We had a great time.

Waiting to begin geocaching.

What a beautiful afternoon at the park!

Cami was so proud to find the first one!

I love all the Carolina pines.

Looking at the prizes and signing the log.

What cute kids!

This one was pretty well hidden, but we couldn't be fooled!

Meise Wedding

The Meise's had a wedding reception for their son the day after Christmas. He was married in the Salt Lake Temple Dec. 12th. Beth is one of my dearest friends and she, Leisha, and I have been planning in the mornings during seminary for months. Leisha was in charge of running the kitchen and I helped Beth iron chair covers for about 4 hours while our other friend Shannon made everything look marvelous. It really was a lot of fun and the cultural hall was transformed into a beautiful reception.

I didn't want the pressure of taking pictures of Jeff and Robyn (the bride and groom), but I was willing to take some candid shots during the reception. Now that I'm writing this post I wish I had a few pics of them, but these will have to do.

I made beautiful ice luminaries with winter berry and poinsettias frozen in them to line the walkway to the church. Here's the bad news - it rained. I now have 30 large luminaries in my basement freezer waiting to be used. I think we will have to have a YW or Relief Society dinner soon;)

Hayley and Zoey

Shannon, Jen, and Beth

Connie and Andrew

Hayley and Dallin

Christmas Morning

Merry Christmas!

Here are a few pictures from our day.

Waiting at the top of the stairs. They found their stockings under the kid tree this year.


Santa brought Dallin a warm sweatshirt, Taylor piano music, and Cami a cupcake pan and cupcake shoes. When Cami was little she would always ask Santa to bring her a cake - they're still on the same page;)



Dallin believes you can never have too many sweatshirts. He also got an itouch and speakers for his room. He was VERY happy and spent the rest of the day getting everything set up and loaded.



Cami has loved learning to skate. Her lessons start again in January and now she has nice skates of her own.



Taylor really wanted Uggs, but didn't ask for them. She was VERY surprised when she opened them.



Cami's last present led her to a bike waiting in the basement. She can't wait to bike with us this summer, but we didn't wait and made a small track in our unfinished basement for her to practice.



Cami definitely has her own sense of style. This was her outfit on Christmas. Cupcake converse and a sparkly silver skirt just suit her. She looked adorable.


Taylor gets to spend a day in NYC with me and Ed. We will go to lunch, see Wicked, walk around the city, eat dinner, and see Lion King. Ed and I are just as excited as she is and we can't wait for February. She even got the piano music for the Wicked and has already begun learning the songs.

Christmas Eve - Part 2

We traveled home from Grandma and Grandpa's house in time to enjoy some of our favorite traditions.

We decided to make reindeer cupcakes instead of cookies this year. The GF cupcakes just taste so much better than the cookies:)

They turned out cute and were really yummy!

Next we opened our family activity. We decided to try to do the puzzle before bed.

We finished in record time.

Now it's time for the Christmas Eve Pajamas.

We read the Christmas story from the bible and sent everyone to bed so Santa could visit. Cami likes it when they sleep in her room on Christmas Eve, so we got the air mattresses set up and tucked them in tight.