white christmas.

we left san diego at about 1pm on saturday the 22nd. we had planned to leave at 11am, so i consider that a success. last year we left on christmas day after 2pm, so at least we beat last years time! unfortunately we hit traffic and the drive was all around pretty miserable with a tranquilized cat and it taking much longer than usual. bandit was actually pretty good, he only cried for the last hour straight. i felt like i was traveling with a baby and we eventually had to stop trying to console him and just let him cry. 

by the time we arrived at my dads, got everything ready for the cat and got into bed, it was 4:30 am. such a late night, but i'm proud to say that i stayed up most of the drive and hung out with jon. on sunday we went to church with my dad. it was a really good sacrament meeting. church is always the best on christmas sunday's. 

the highlight of my trip was getting to meet this baby:

 bentley webb! believe it or not, he's even cuter IRL. jon and i went over right after church and hung out with their family for a couple hours. lyndsi let me hog bentley and he even fell asleep in my arms. 

my other sweet thing.

love

(my cat is really cute, huh? you like him? he's looking for a place to live until may. help!)

on christmas eve it went from not snowing to six inches of snow! it was the perfect christmas present, everyone was excited about having a white christmas. bandit adjusted quickly too!

 lizzie with the perfect tree! it was so funny christmas tree shopping with her. it was 4:50pm on Christmas Eve and home depot was closing at 5. she and i were approached by a worker and we asked him if there were any deals on the trees since it was the last day. he told us that he'd give one to us for free so we immediately pointed at the one closest to us and said "we'll take this one." he told us that he'd seen that one before the snow storm and it was really dry. so we grabbed the one right next to it and said "this one." we didn't even look around, we grabbed the one nearest to us so that he wouldn't retract his discount! 

 lucky for us, it was the cutest little tree! 

 we celebrated christmas eve at my aunt camille's house with my family and cousins. it was our first year reenacting christ's birth story, and i don't think it will be our last.

 

 early christmas morning we went to jon's moms house. she lives right by my dads which is always really nice, there is not much travel time. christmas morning was fun there. we opened presents and played games. jon and his dog, sadie, are BFF's. we are so excited to take her to texas with us! we also went to jon's grandma's house for brunch. i love his extended family, they are always so kind and welcoming to me.

after brunch at the nielsen's/woodbury's we came back to my dads to have our second (third) christmas! the dynamics have changed so much with three little ones running around. i love watching their eyes light up when they open their gifts and when we all open the gifts lizzie helps them make us. i don't know how i didn't get any birthday photos of lizzie! but we celebrated her birth christmas night with birthday cake, dinner and pitch perfect! 

amanda posted more photos here.