Church History Museum and This is the Place Heritage Park

On the Thursday before Christmas we took another trip to Salt Lake to visit This is the Place Heritage Park.  My sisters-in-law had heard they do fun Christmas activities there, but when we arrived in the afternoon we were told the activities didn't start until after dark.  So since we had a few hours to kill we headed over to the Church History Museum, mostly because it's free. :)  It was great, though, because they have a wonderful children's exhibit that we'd never seen before and the kids loved it.  It was all about the Book of Mormon and Latin America, and they had all sorts of fun activities and centers for the kids to enjoy.  (Notice Ari's straight hair!  David straightened it, but I like it better curly...)

 I love Ari's face in this one. :)

The little girls LOVED the play kitchen!

Somehow we always end up around the food...

Bryan enjoyed "fishing" off Nephi's ship.

This bike had balls that bounced around inside the wheel - so entertaining!

Matt must have been excited about something here!

Chilling in the back of the truck...

Bryan proved to be an awesome little Mexican dancer! :)

After the kids had played for quite a while, we had just enough time to grab some dinner before going back to This is the Place for the evening activities.  It was freezing, of course, but overall it was a fun night.  In each historic building they had a different thing to do or a story to hear - we heard "The Night Before Christmas" and a story about how people started leave out stockings for Santa - and we even saw a puppet show about how reindeer came to pull Santa's sleigh. They also had a lovely nativity set up with real animals and a real baby!  

Here's Ari on the train ride up to the top of the hill to start our tour.

In one of the homes the kids got to write yet another letter to Santa, and then pioneer tradition was to burn them so the ashes could magically go up to the North Pole.

Getting ready to throw his letter into the fire...

Thankfully they also had fires around the village to help us warm up!  Still, I don't think I could feel my toes by the end of the night!

At the end of our tour we got to see Santa, and I have to say he was one of the best I've seen!  Very old-fashioned and authentic looking, and very nice. :)

There was also a sleigh to take pictures on as well.  Cute cousin pic. 

We were all pretty tired by the time we left, and very glad to get into heated cars!  I can't imagine how the pioneers actually lived in the frigid Utah winters, let alone crossing the plains!  One night in the cold village was enough for me!  But I'm glad we went, since we'd never gone before - it was a fun mix of the traditional and religious aspects of Christmas.

Temple Square and Gardner Village

With David's parents here, we had a full calendar of Christmas activities to make the most of their visit.  The week before Christmas especially we did something just about every night.  On Monday, we went up to Salt Lake to see the lights on Temple Square and go to the Christmas carol sing-along at the basketball arena.  Unfortunately, it was one of the coldest days thus far in December (in the 20s), so by the time we'd walked from our parking spot to Temple Square we were already half frozen.  Still, the lights were spectacular, and it was fun to see the cute Nativity scenes they had set up over by the Church office building.

Love Matt's face here... :)

The sing-along was fun and festive, and we got to hear Alex Boye perform a few songs as well.  He's quite the performer!

The next day we went to see the lights and the elves at Gardner Village.  We loved seeing the witches (or "itches" as Ari calls them) in the Fall, so we figured the elves would be fun as well.  It wasn't quite as impressive, but it was nice because there were hardly any other people there and we were able to take our time and walk through the stores.  And of course there were plenty of fun photo ops as well.

Mali and Buelo

I like cute Maily's face peeking out here...

Watching the elves in the North Pole post office...

Supposedly singing with the carolers, although I'm not sure what Bryan was doing here...

After we'd had our fill of the elves and shops, we stopped at a restaurant in Sandy for dinner.  I'm afraid with all of our running around we ate out quite a bit during the week, but there's not much better than ending a full day with good food and conversation!

Bittersweet blessing

Poor Heather's been in and out of the hospital for most of the month of December!  She's had one complication after the next, but she's hung in there.  While it's certainly been hard on her and her family, it was a blessing to have Mom out here for an unexpected visit.  She was here for about three weeks to help take care of Heather and her girls.  She would have stayed longer, but her job required her to return sooner than she was ready...  Still, we snuck in as many visits as we could to both her and Heather during those few weeks.  Any time with Mom is precious time, since we usually only get to see her a couple times a year.

Most of our visits consisted of me meeting up with her and the girls at the hospital where we'd visit with Heather in one of the waiting rooms.  It was usually pretty chaotic, especially if my boys were there, but the nurses and other patients seemed to be pretty understanding.  After saying goodbye to Heather and leaving the hospital we'd often go back with Mom to Heather's house to let the kids play a bit more.  Once, though, we stopped at the Grand America Hotel to see a Christmas exhibit they had there and check out the new fancy toy store they just opened.  The kids did a scavenger hunt of sorts and got a yummy sugar cookie at the end, and Mom and I enjoyed yummy gelatos. :)

These are a couple pictures of the huge gingerbread house they had inside...

And the toy store was just too cute... very fun and whimsical.

The kids thought it was extra cool to get to see Grandma and enjoy some Christmas things with her.  I just loved being able to visit and shop and see the yummy holiday treats she made for Heather and Jake.  Made it almost feel like I was back home in PA for Christmas like we were last year...  So while I wish more than anything that Heather was well and never had to be in the hospital in the first place, I'm grateful Mom was able to be here for as long as she was at such a special time of year.  It will definitely be a bittersweet December to remember.

Grandma Willes' Christmas Party

My Grandma's Christmas party for the grandkids has become a special event in our family.  I've been going since I came out to BYU more than 15 years ago, and now my kids get to go and enjoy cookie-decorating, pizza, and plenty of yummy treats.  This year it was my mom, my Aunts Chris and Jaymi and most of their kids, my Great Aunt Tootsie, and my Uncle Don.  And then me and Bree and Cassity, Nathan and Allison, and our kiddoes.  We were all sad that Heather wasn't able to be there.  She had to be admitted to the hospital again this last week with blood clots in her lungs!  Thankfully they were small and she's fine now -  she was able to go home just this afternoon - but she wasn't out in time to come to the party.  Mom brought Cami and Lexi, though, so we got to have fun with them and take pics to send to Heather and Jake.

When we arrived it was just Ari and I representing our little family.  David took the boys to a BYU basketball game, and they came and joined us later.  But it was nice to sit and relax with the girls and just visit.  Here are a few pics of Ari and Cam and their cookie creations.

She really piled on the candy!

Ariana was especially subdued at the table for some reason and we couldn't get her to smile for anything!  She perked right up when she was done decorating and able to play with the other kids downstairs.

She and Cam found a slinky and neither would let go of either end for a while!  They thought it was pretty silly.

Amidst some serious conversations, Bree and Cassity kept everybody smiling.  :)

And here are the boys after they showed up after the game.  Matthew loved squeezing the frosting bags!

Bryan with his final product!  (Matt ended up eating most of his...)

I wish I would have gotten pictures of my mom and everyone else there!  I had to say goodbye to Mom since she's heading back to Pennsylvania today. :(  She's been able to stay for the last few weeks and help take care of Cami and Lexi, but it got to the point where she just couldn't miss any more work.  We'll sure miss having her here!