New Years

We spent most of New Year's Eve and New Year's Day with the Stevens family, many of whom had traveled to be there after spending Christmas with their other sides. We met up on Saturday morning for a traditional round of racquetball. The kids enjoyed playing with their cousins in the childcare areas while the adults enjoyed some court action.

It's always fun to play, and to enjoy visiting together while others play. It's definitely a family tradition that everyone loves.
A few of us managed to squeeze in some zumba between games. It was totally a result of peer pressure for me- it was my very first time trying zumba. There's no way I would have gone out without some sister-in-law moral support!
Tami even managed to get CJ out there. Actually though, I'm pretty sure CJ went out first and Tam tagged along with him. They were looking good together! Ow ow!
After racquetball, we headed back to Scott & Amanda's for lunch. After lunch, some of the group went geocaching, some had some down time, and others went back for another round of racquetball. Jacob and Caleb went with all the big cousins and Grandma. I enjoyed visiting with Nettie and holding sweet baby Hailey. Later on, Jeff and I met up with a few others for another game of racquetball.

Jacob and Eliza

(can you believe Eliza is just 13 days younger than Jacob?)

Saturday night was spent eating a wonderful dinner of Navajo Tacos, spending time together, and playing games. I went with Tami and Amanda to take James & Sam to their very first New Year's Stake dance- that was fun! Jeff and I put our kids to sleep for a few hours while we played games with everyone and rang in the new year. I definitely think we're all getting old because within 30 minutes of the new year's arrival, more than half the adults were asleep. Ha! We stuck around for one more game, then loaded our kids up and headed back up to my parent's home.

Sunday we went to church with the Tanners, then came home and finished getting everything packed up and said our goodbyes. We've had a lot of goodbyes over the years, but for some reason this one seemed particularly hard, and there were some tears shed by a few individuals. I don't know if it's because of Mom's situation right now or what, but I hated to leave. Luckily it won't be too long before we get to see everyone again.

We then headed back over to the Stevens where they were getting ready to bless baby Hailey. It was a special experience. Hailey is a sweet little girl and I still can't believe how much hair she has. After the blessing we had a yummy dinner and enjoyed spending a few more hours with the Stevens family before we had to say goodbye.

Lora is a little sweetheart. She was my special little friend and also such a sweet friend to Emily. These two were pretty much inseparable for the few hours we were there.

The Stevens girls, minus Emilee

(we missed Jonny & Emi who were celebrating a belated honeymoon)

Take 2 (sometimes it's hard to get everyone looking with eyes open. :)

Matthew and Emily with Grandpa. Can you tell how much Matthew loves his Grandpa?

Emily saying goodbyes to aunt Tami

The time went by much too fast, and we soon found ourselves saying more goodbyes, but we're looking forward to being together again this next summer for another wonderful family reunion.

Post Christmas Fun

We filled up the week after Christmas with all sorts of activities. Our whole family isn't together very often, and we wanted to take advantage of the time as much as we could. One of the nice things about being home at this time was being able to be there for mom while she had a couple treatments. The first time she went through her cancer treatments, we were thousands of miles away and I felt helpless. At least during this trip, Kristie and I were able to be in charge of a lot of the meals and cooking, and everyone was able to do help with cleanup and many other things. One day we all spent the day together organizing closets & toys, cleaning bathrooms, doing laundry, vacuuming, etc. It brought back lots of memories of working together when we were young. I sometimes wonder how I thought of those times as anything but fun? I love working together with the family.

Anyway, we were able to do a lot of fun things together the week after Christmas. It wouldn't be a Christmas vacation without at least one night of dodgeball/playing at the church. It's one of the highlights for the kids as well as the adults.

Kristie wasn't able to participate in the dodgeball because of a recent surgery. She was sweet enough to play with the girls out in the hallway with nursery toys while the craziness went on in the gym.

Mom & Dad got the kids these bouncy bouncers for Christmas and we decided to take them down to the gym with us. Everyone had fun bouncing around on them, and a few of us ended up having races across the gym. It was hilarious to watch! We definitely need to make that a tradition.
Another day, Dad organized a service project for our family. We were able to go to the home of a single sister in the stake and do a bunch of yardwork for her. We spent a few hours clearing out the garden, digging up weeds and stumps, raking leaves, repairing a sprinkler, and other things to get the yard looking great. The kids were helpful and we enjoyed the beautiful day outside together.




Of course there was still plenty of time to enjoy being at home together. We played games, watched movies, talked, snuck in some naps, and enjoyed being on vacation.

Travis and the boys playing a game on his iphone.

Jacob and Caleb hanging out with Brent. Brent is a student and wrestler at BSU. He needed a place to live during the school year, and my parents volunteered, so he's been living with my parents since the beginning of the school year. It's been so great to have him there. He and Cole have become best friends. He is one of the coolest guys ever, and just seems like a part of the family. He has such a fun personality and is always making everyone laugh. Jeff and Brent get along awesome because they both love wrestling and our boys absolutely adore him- and he is always playing with them and spending time with them. Brent is just another family member and we're going to be sad when it's time for him to leave.

Another night we arranged for a babysitter to be home with the kids and the adults went out to dinner at Casa Mexico. I think this was another one of the highlights of the trip. We pretty much had the place to ourselves and enjoyed some awesome Mexican food. It was so fun to be together as adults and be able to just talk and laugh for a couple hours together. I don't even remember everything we were talking about, but I know there were more funny stories shared and I laughed a lot. I'm so glad that all the siblings and spouses enjoy being together so much. Everyone loves each other and time together is our favorite. I feel so lucky to have such a wonderful family that loves each other.

This was a Tanner year, so we spent most of the time with family, but we were able to take a few visits over to visit with Mom & Dad Stevens and the family as well. A couple days after Christmas we went over for a few hours. We had a delicious lunch and opened Christmas gifts. Mom & Dad Stevens went all out with amazing homemade gifts this year. Mom made each child a special individual pillowcase, and Mom & Dad put together these amazing bear claw necklaces for the boys. They were a huge hit!

Emily got a beautiful initial 'E' necklace and a darling quilt that mom made along with the pillowcase and some other fun toys and treats. She was in heaven!

Matthew & Grandpa with his cool necklace and pillowcase.

Caleb loved the bow and arrows! He looked a like a real hunter holding it with his bear claw necklace.

Jacob loved the nylon bracelet Grandpa made for him, and the bear claw necklace as well. He also loved the fish pillowcase. I think the very first thing he did when we got home from our long trip was to go down and put the new pillowcase on his pillow. He loves fishing, and was thrilled. In fact he told me he wished he could have an entire bed set with the same fishing material.

Mom and Dad also spoiled us with some wonderful books, some workout clothes and shirts, some beautiful jewelry, washcloths, dishtowels, and lots of other fun things. We sure appreciate their thoughtfulness and love spending time with them.

Merry Christmas

I love it when Christmas falls on a Sunday. I enjoy getting up and getting ready for church (it's also helpful when church is at 9am) and being able to enjoy a beautiful sacrament meeting that really turns your focus to the true meaning of Christmas. I just really think it sets a perfect tone for the whole rest of the day. When Jacob and Caleb learned Christmas would be on a Sunday, they didn't quite share my enthusiasm at first. But after sitting there in church listening to the choir sing and the beautiful messages being shared, Jacob turned to me and said, "You're right Mom. Having Christmas on a Sunday really is the best." Talk about melting your heart. I love these sweet kids of mine.

I wanted to get a family picture that morning- Emily and I coordinated in red and the boys were all in blue & gray- but I wanted to early for church more. So we snapped a quick picture of the kids and made it to church 10 minutes early.

After church some of us got changed, and then we started in with the gifts. This was the first time in many years we've been home with the whole family. Although it was a little loud and crazy, it was so much fun. Everyone was pretty excited.


I loved watching Emily and Lilah run around. They were so funny. They loved taking presents to everyone, going through their stockings, and just enjoying the palpable excitement in the air.

Because we did our family Christmas at home before we left, the kids didn't get gifts from Mom & Dad, but they got some fun things from Grandma and Grandpa and aunts & uncles. And Santa did fill their stockings and brought them a couple of special presents. The boys got a set of laser tag guns (that were thoroughly enjoyed by everyone during the holiday) and our family must have been really good, because Santa brought us an Xbox Kinnect- the very first electronic toy we've ever had.

Jacob got an electric scooter

Caleb got a battery operated race track.

Matthew got a shake 'n go race track he'd been wanting for months.

And Emily was super excited about her new little doll and stroller. She loved sitting with Jeff to open her gifts, but when the stroller came out she was pretty much done with her presents.

It was so funny to watch her- she spent the next 20 minutes pushing her baby in circles around the kitchen island. It was so cute-especially when she would have her purse & cell phone with her.

I took this candid shot and it's probably one of my favorites. I wish I would have gotten everyone in the picture better, but I still love how it's a real life glimpse into the family Christmas. Everyone is happily engrossed in the moment, opening a gift or talking to a family member, and enjoying being together.
After we finished with all the gifts, we all helped make a yummy Christmas lunch. The rest of the day was spent lounging around, a few of us enjoyed naps, listening to music, telling stories, eating lots of yummy food, watching "It's a Wonderful Life" again, and just enjoying being together. I told Jeff it really couldn't have been a more perfect Christmas.

Later on that night, everyone was enjoying playing with Tom's new "buckey balls." They were hard to put down!
But the classic moment of the night was when Dad started playing with the funny magnetic toys. I think this is one of the funniest pictures of Dad and I hope he'll forgive me for putting it up. (But Kristie did put it up on her blog first, and since it was already long gone in web land, I figured doing it again wouldn't be too harmful. But Kristie did it first! :)