We were lucky enough this Christmas season to spend time with 4 of our kids in Salt Lake, Phoenix, Tucson and Houston!
But, first we had our own early celebration in Idaho...
The next day (Dec. 17) we embarked on our journey toward Arizona. Along the way we were able to visit with many relatives and in-laws. It was nice to hand deliver gifts and visit with everybody in-person this year.
Of course, our favorite stop in Salt Lake is at Ryan and Heather's house, where we were treated to a special musical concert from the whole family!
Then we got to have an early Christmas with Marissa, Mallory and Nathan. It was so much fun!
Once we arrived in Arizona, we spent a few days with Ricky's family. We celebrated Christmas and Ricky's birthday on Dec. 23--an old Savage family tradition. Ricky was excited to get a rare replica of the original Book of Mormon. That night we watched a documentary on the recreation of the book that was.... less than exciting (in Nat's opinion).
You know you're a Dad when.... you decide to celebrate your 30-something birthday by taking your kids to Chuck E. Cheese.
We flew to Houston on Dec. 24th and were treated to a lovely Christmas Eve dinner prepared for us by Annie. She had put a lot of work in and it showed--the dinner was delicious! They downloaded a "fireplace" app on their iphone and projected it onto their TV screen so it would look like a real fireplace. Very cute. Bright and early the next morning we celebrated Christmas Day... on Christmas Day!
Esme got lots of cute clothes, books and toys. She also got one of the newest Baby Banana Brush products.... the Baby Sharky Brush. She was a great model for us!
We also did a really great job of convincing Esme that she is related to Santa Clause.
We were in Houston for a whole week! During this time we ate excellent food (seriously, the BEST steak dinner of our lives), poor Esme didn't get to eat any!
We also went to the place that answers the phone when the astronauts call and say "Houston, we have a problem". Even though they don't actually send rockets out from this place, its still a part of NASA. It was pretty cool.
The best part of the week was hanging out with this smiley little wiggle worm.
After Houston, we flew back to Phoenix and spent New Years with Ricky and Nancee's families. Lincoln and Erica thought it would be really funny to attack Aunt Natalee with their light sabers. It wasn't.
After the violence, it was time for dancing. This is Erica's "arabesque". She already knows way more about dancing than Nancee or Natalee ever did.
Phoenix was having record lows while we were there. Everyone said we brought the bad weather with us. Notice the beanies and gloves??
Then we all went on babysitting duty. Which consisted of fun stuff like....
