Christmas

What a wonderful Christmas we enjoyed this year!

The Sunday before, we drove down to see the lights at the LA Temple and walk around the grounds as a family. The best part of this trip was on the way down though -- we had asked the boys to grab their coats before leaving and Peter decided to wear 4 LARGE coats the entire hour and a half car ride down to Los Angeles. He was covered in sweat by the time we got there but refused to take any off until we actually got out of the car... Crazy kid.

The lights aren't quite as stunning as those in Salt Lake, but they were still beautiful and we had a wonderful time as a family. 

For Christmas Eve our dear friends the Novacks joined us for dinner and brought fancy Christmas Crackers for us to pop. The boys loved them! I just enjoyed seeing everyone wear their crowns throughout dinner.

 And then, there was Christmas morning...

The boys were sooo excited and were going crazy over every single present. I think their favorites however were this play food set for Benji

 and this giant Lego Castle set for Peter.

He patiently spent all morning long putting it together and trying out all the different trapdoors and dungeons. Then he promptly took it apart before dinner and proceeded to make all sorts of other castle creations. 

It was a pretty relaxed day where we all just hung out in our pjs eating leftovers and relaxing because the next day we headed off to Utah to visit my family.

Growing up my dad always made traps for us to go through Christmas morning to get our presents and this year he and Travis set up quite the obstacle course in his basement for the grandkids to go through. 

Here's Pagie and Peter trying to cross the 'lava lake.'

The kids loved it all -- they probably spent several hours going through them over and over -- and that includes our big 'kid' Travis. I think he had as much fun setting up the traps as the kids did going through them! 

We then opened presents and Benji was in heaven after he got this Jake telescope from Grandma. I don't think he let it out of his sight all day.

 And here's Peter wearing his new safari vest and reading his Lego book. 

We had a wonderful time with cousins and grandparents and just in general had the best trip.

And here's one more just for kicks...Benji in his grandpa sweater catching a little shut-eye.

Merry Christmas!