Christmas

December 21-26-
We had a wonderful Christmas in McCall with Jonathan's family.
Kingston, Jonathan, and I met Joan and Cam up there Friday after work.  It took us a while to get settled and unpacked...we probably had enough stuff to last a month, but when you are traveling with a kiddo in the winter, you want to be prepared for everything.
Saturday morning, we just hung around the cabin.  Jonathan and Cam had gotten the satellite dish working and the TV set up, so there was going to be some football watching!!  But first, we had to test out the snow!
Kingston got some new skis, and he did pretty well, but he was much better at sledding!

Then it was time for the BSU game.  Zac and Emily made it up in time to watch with Jonathan and Rob, Monica, Brylee, and Zayden came up later that night after the game.  BSU pulled out a win, but it was fun to watch them all get nervous when the game was close!

Sunday, we all loaded up and headed to Brundage for a day of skiing.  Kingston went to daycare for a few hours but my parents came and had lunch with us and picked him up early.  It was a great day for skiing on the mountain.  Lots of good snow!  Brylee had a few lessons and by the end of the day she was skiing and turning like a pro.  It made me excited to get Kingston out there!

We were pretty much done for the rest of the night.  My parents joined us for dinner since they had to bring Kingston back, but we all went to bed early and sore!

Monday, we had fun sledding outside. It takes a bit to get Kingston all bundled up in his snow clothes and I'm amazed that he can still walk, but he stayed warm and dry.  We started off sledding down the hill by the house, but then ventured out to find a bigger hill.

The kids had it made getting a ride on the sleds!

This was our first attempt at a sledding hill, but it wasn't steep enough.

Our second hill was much better.  We made several runs down it and there were lots of smiles and giggles.

We were all exhausted and headed back to the cabin for some hot chocolate!

Later that night, we got all ready for Christmas Eve Church.  We weren't quite sure how Kingston would do, but I had a purse full of snacks and toys.  In the end, he did pretty good.  It's hard to sit there and be quite for an hour, but luckily for us there was a boy that kept running through the church and he took his shirt off so, that made Kingston look pretty good!

When we got home, we sprinkled reindeer food outside for Santa's reindeer.

Then, we got to open a present!

Brylee and Zayden opened Dream Lights (stuffed animals that project stars onto the ceiling) and they were so excited. Apparently, they had been wanting them for awhile now!  Kingston opened a present from uncle Rob and Aunt Monica.  It was a fleece blanket with his name on it and a picture of Mickey Mouse: he loved it.

I got a super cute pair of boots, but Kingston also took a liking to them and just had to try them on.  Although, he had a hard time walking in them!

Kingston played with Nana's peg game for a long time.  Taking out the pegs and then putting them back in, over, and over, and over again.

Kingston knew Santa wouldn't come until he fell asleep so he went right to bed!  After the traditional Christmas Eve shot, we all called it a night, too.

Christmas morning we were all up bright and early.  Kingston was up first but we waited to see what Santa brought until Brylee and Zayden were up.  And they were all so excited to see what Santa left them.

(Kingston also got a kitchen to go with his food, but Santa knew that we wouldn't be able to fit it with all of our stuff so he left it at our house)

We took a breakfast break and then continued to open all the rest of our presents.  I felt spoiled by all the stuff that I got.  Lots of cute clothes and teas and candy.  Kingston got his first taste of candy cane and he liked it!  Brylee was always so great at helping Kingston and sharing whatever she had with him (Kingston is not the greatest at sharing)

An electric toothbrush from Uncle Zac and Aunt Emmy was probably Kingston's favorite gift.  He kept walking around with it in his mouth and drooling all over the place.  At this rate we will need new batteries next week!

Joan and Cam had to leave on Tuesday after our big lunch/dinner, but all the kids stayed. We took down ALL the Christmas stuff and enjoyed snacking on leftovers.  We stayed up playing games and had lots of laughs.  Emily won twice at Mexican Dominoes. Rob, Monica, and I were a great team and we won both Pictionary Man and Cranium Hoopla.  I will admit that the other team got some pretty impossible words to draw, but we still came out pretty far ahead.
Wednesday we just packed up and headed back home.  Kingston was pretty excited to see what Santa had left him!

He was supposed to be putting money into his bank, but a few quarters found there way into his mouth instead.

We also had to take Kingston's new wagon from Nana and Pappa out for a spin.  We had a good time on our stroll around the neighbor hood.

Here he is with all of his presents from Christmas.  I would say that he did pretty good!