Christmas Vacation

We went to Utah for four weeks this year, to celebrate the holidays. We had such a great time. The first week we were there was a little rough, but we made it through. We stayed with Jon's parents that first week, and Jon ended up getting sick. He hadn't slept well before we left and then we didn't get a lot of sleep the first couple of nights we were in Utah. Luckily I didn't get sick, so I got up with Sophie in the mornings and let Jon try and sleep. By the end of the week he started feeling better. The first couple of days we just relaxed. Both of Jon's sisters and one of his brothers were at Disneyland the first few days we were there, so we had fun with his brother Josh and his family. They came over in the evenings to play games. We watched a lot of Christmas movies, which was my favorite. Jon's mom has Direct TV, so his mom had been recording Christmas movies, and I spent a lot of time watching movies. It was wonderful!

I took this picture of Sophie after church the first Sunday we were in Utah. I hadn't gotten any pictures of her in this dress yet, even though she got the dress and sweater for her birthday.

Sophie and Landon playing with Grandma Harper's wrapping paper.

Sunday evening we got together with all of Jon's family for dinner and FHE. Jon's family gets together every fast Sunday for dinner, FHE and to celebrate all of the birthdays that month. Since most of the family weren't around on fast Sunday, the bumped it to the second Sunday of the month and we were lucky enough to be in town. We got to celebrate Heather's birthday that evening. She was at Disneyland on her actual birthday, and it sounded like she had a wonderful day. Sophie is learning how to say names, and she calls aunt Heather "Hatty".

Sophie with her cousin Landon. Landon is three month older than Sophie and he wasn't too sure about Sophie the first night. He is much quieter and not as crazy as Sophie. I think she made him a little nervous. Luckily it didn't take long for him to warm up to Sophie's craziness and they had fun playing together. Here they are sitting in their twin booster seats.

Sophie after her bath. Such crazy hair!

Uncle Scott made this rocking chair for Sophie for her Christmas gift. She loved it! She would sit in it while she watched "Roo, Roo" (Rudolph) and "Fwosty" (Frosty). She watched both movies at least once a day. Grandpa Reed and Aunt Nicole got tired of watching Frosty and Rudolph. My dad was sweet enough to get up with Sophie while we were staying with them and he said the first thing Sophie would ask for was to watch Rudolph or Frosty. She's addicted!

Sophie is kissing a green ornament on Grandma and Grandpa Reed's Christmas tree. I don't remember why she did it, but I thought it was so cute. It's hard to see the ornament, so I asked her to kiss a red ornament so that we could see it better, but she wouldn't do it. I was worried about Sophie playing with the ornaments on the trees, especially since we never got around to decorating our Christmas tree, but she did very well. She did take some of the ornaments off of Grandma Harper's tree, but they were foam ornaments, so they wouldn't break. We've had friends tell us that when their kids were Sophie's age they could only decorate the top half of the tree. We didn't have any problems with Sophie. She had a small tree in her room with ornaments and she did play with those, even though we tried to tell her not to. I really didn't care if she played with them, but I didn't want her thinking that it was okay to play with any ornament. Grandma Reed gave her an ornament to play with and she ended up breaking it within five minutes of playing with it. Oh well! Just a side note, Sophie calls both of her grandmas "Maemi". It's so cute and Grandma Reed loves it. As Sophie gets older, she doesn't want Sophie to call her grandma, she always wants to be called Maemi.

Playing on Grandma Stuart's walker.

Daddy reading a Christmas story to Ashtyn, Sophie and Avery. The girls had a sleep over at grandma and grandpa's house, and they got to make candy cane cookies. It turned out that Grandpa did most of the work and Ashtyn and Avery helped a little. Sophie was a little too young to help.

The ornament that Maemi gave Sophie. It didn't last long. Maybe five minutes before Sophie dropped it on the kitchen counter.

Maemi giving Sophie a horsie ride. Once Maemi got tired, she asked Sophie to give her a ride, but Sophie just laid down on the floor. Silly girl!

Jon's mom has a play kitchen under in the play room under the stairs. Sophie loved playing with it and one evening Aunt Nicole and I sat in there with Sophie and she played for an hour. I couldn't believe it. She had so much fun. It was so cute watching her pretend to cook. She would take the cans of food and pretend to dump the food in the pans and then she would feed Nicole and I. I want to get her a play kitchen for her birthday.

Sophie busy cooking. I just love her little ponytail. This was the first time I put her hair up and it looked so cute. I couldn't believe how grown up she looked. She isn't my baby anymore; she's a little girl.