The Last Day of Our Vacation - aka New Year's Day

Brek enjoyed helping Grandma Jensen shovel the snow:

That evening we went over to Peter and Marisa's. Brek ran into the wall. He temporarily wore an ice pack:

You can see the bump in this next picture. And cousin Jessica gave Brek nail polish to paint my nails, and Joe's nails, and Joe's toenails. And then we made sure he painted Jessica's nails before she left for her blind date.

And someone else gave him a candy to turn his tongue blue:

It was a fun night. And a wonderful end to our visit to Utah. And a fun start to our 2015!

December Part 4 - The rest of our vacation and New Year's Eve

One morning Brek convinced Grandma Jensen to pull out her cello. This is one of Brek's favorite things to do when we visit.

Then Grandma suggested we get out one of the old broken violas hanging on her wall and turn it into a more appropriately-sized cello for Brek. She pulled out an extra cello bow and go to work teaching Brek proper position and technique.

And then they started playing duets:

This is one of my favorite pictures:

Another day Joe & I had a date and when and did some shopping. We went to lunch at Zupas like we always do which is my favorite restaurant and I got the same thing that I always get. So yummy!!! We did some clothes and shoes and Costco shopping too. It's nice to visit a city after living in rural country. Then we met up with my sister and her family and saw the new movie Annie. Very cute!

On New Year's Eve day, we drove up to Salt Lake and went to the zoo. It was a free admission day. I knew it was going to be cold, but I wasn't quite expecting freezing. Brek was pretty whiny and unpleasant. There weren't as many animals out as we had hoped. But we hung in there for an hour or so and called it good. We did get to see the gorillas (inside, thankfully), and an elephant out playing in the snow, and the sea lions and seals (not even the polar bear was out!), but we did see the brown bears, and then the tigers too. They were pretty active.

Trying to get a picture with the tiger. Not such a good one:

Then inside. Brek liked the big turles the most:

Before we left we stopped and got hot chocolate in the zoo cafe.

That evening cousins arrived!!!

Playing with Jensen, Eliza, Mara, and Olaf

It just so happens that Mara and Eliza's new Christmas pjs are the EXACT SAME ONES that my mom got for my nieces, which match Brek's pjs. So they wore them on New Year's Eve together.

Tea party with cousins and Olaf:

Brek, Eliza, Mara, Lizzie, Olaf, and Sabrina

Our brother-in-law Matt got a race car driving simulator for Christmas, so he brought it over for our New Year's Eve party. As the evening dwindled down and got later, even Brek took a turn. His cousins Rose, Nora, and Mara were helpful so he could have several turns. Apparently he's really good at crashing:

It was fun partying with the Jensen family to ring in the New Year. It was the first time Brek has gotten to stay up until Midnight, which he of course thought was totally awesome (and of course made for a cranky boy the next day). We're grateful that Brek has such wonderful cousins that play so well with him. Happy 2015 to our family and friends!!!

December Part 2 - Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, & Boxing Day

Christmas Eve we spent with Joe's younger brother Dan, and his family, and Joe's mom. Brek, of course, loved the cousin time! (In fact, to the lack of his poor manners and the fact that he is 4 and barely has any even tho I try, the moment we arrived at Joe's mom's house after a long day of driving, he walked in and said, "Where are my cousins!?" No "Hi Grandma!" or "We're here Grandma" or "I missed you Grandma." Just asking for the cousins. Thankfully he had some wonderful time with Grandma Jensen to make up for it.)

Anyway, back to Christmas Eve. Here's Brek and Madison playing with cars. They especially got giggly when they would crash them in to each other, which I also thought was hilarious.

And once Matthew warmed up to us, he enjoyed going and sitting on the track and getting in the way as the cars went around. He thought he was pretty funny.

Once Dan was home from work, we got started on our festivities. Dan & Michelle had planned a "Bethlehem Dinner" with grapes, cheeses, crackers, mini-hotdogs, a veggie tray, and sparkling grape juice. We were originally going to eat it on the floor, but with the grape juice and nice carpet, we decided against that. Brek dressed up as Joseph and Madison dressed up as Mary and we all ate together. It was super cute and so much fun! I thought it was a great idea of creating a kid-friendly (and still adult-enjoyable) dinner for such a special evening.

After dinner we did craft time. I found this idea on Pinterest, and loved it because it was something all of the kids could do on their own if they wanted to. And it was simple enough that it wasn't too much work for me to get ready.

Madison was pretty funny to watch because at her mom's request, she tried to be thoughtful and meticulous about putting the pieces of tissue paper on the contact paper. But then she lost interest so she just took a handful of the tissue paper, dropped it on the contact paper and quickly spread it around until all the sticky parts were covered. She's one of those "craft projects are interesting but spending a lot of time on it isnt' my cup of tea." Such a cutie!

Brek took a bit more time on his project. And Matthew decided he wanted to make one too, so Grandma Jensen helped.

James wasn't feeling too well, but it was fun that he joined in.

The finished projects:

This one is Brek's:

Matthew cuddling with Grandma Jensen

Next up for the evening was cutting our sugar cookies:

Dan had a fun gift-passing game ready for us as well, which I guess their Grandma Jensen had started as some sort of tradition when they were kids. It was fun, and even little Matthew loved passing the gifts around the circle as Dan read "The Night Before Christmas."

The last thing we had planned was reading the Nativity story (and the kids were going to act our the story.) But Brek and Madison decided they had a little play to do first. They passed the little microphone back and forth. I don't remember what they were saying, but we had a hard time keeping our laughter down. Brek thinks he kept talking about how the play was going to start soon. They are cute kids!

Our nativity play ended up with puppets and dressed up figures, and Brek changing between being Joseph and a wise man, and then Mary becoming a wise man too.

Our nativity play didn't result in quite the gentle spirit and calm of the evening that we had hoped for, so we ended up watching the short nativity movie on lds.org as our ACTUAL final activity and the kids were very calm and quiet and enjoyed it.

Our movie watchers

We had such a wonderful time with Dan & Michelle's family! It was the only time during our Christmas vacation that we got to be with them, so we are grateful that we got to spend the evening together.

Back at Grandma Jensen's house, we all opened up one present and then went to bed. Here are the boys all ready to open their Christmas Eve presents:

Brek got pjs! (We were hoping to find Baymas pjs for him, but got Lightning McQueen instead.) Brek was thrilled!

All the presents out and under the tree, ready for Christmas morning:

Stockings and presents from Santa. (Joe's Christmas Eve present was that I finished his stocking.)

An up-close shot of Brek's delivery from Santa:

I was super excited about our Christmas morning plans: We had decided that we definitely wanted to do more on Christmas to acknowledge that we were celebrating Christ's birth so we had talked about the things we do to celebrate our birthdays. Joe's suggestion had been a birthday cake, but I figured that there are already plenty of sweets around Christmas that we probably didn't need any more. Brek's suggestion was breakfast in bed. We both loved the idea, but were unsure if Joe's mom would be on board with the idea, and weren't exactly sure about the logistics of it, but we decided to try and move forward with it.
Once Brek was up, we all got up and went into the kitchen and made breakfast together. We had smoothies, pancakes, bacon, and sausage. Brek enlisted Grandma Jensen in re-reading "The Magic Curtain" again (as we had read it Christmas Eve before bedtime, per Jensen family tradition.)

Then we all went back upstairs to the room where Brek was sleeping, and sat together on the bed and the floor and ate breakfast together. We re-read the scripture account of Christ's birth, and per Brek's request, we also watched the nativity video again. (I think he watched that video about 10 times during our trip. He loved the spirit that he felt when he watched it, and it was so sweet to see him want to keep the focus on Jesus through the wonderful Christmas season.)

Finally, we convinced Brek that it was time to go see what Santa brought and open presents. I seriously was more anxious and excited about it than he was. We started with his stocking first

Here he is showing his Baymax action figure:

He got the whole set:

Then he opened the presents from Santa. Here he is giving loves to his Baymax toy. Horray! (Santa had a really, REALLY hard time finding one of these.)

Joe and Brek reading the book about dinosaurs that Santa brought:

Playing the fishing game that Santa brought:

Santa also brought "Baymax wrapping paper!" which in reality was a Baymax poster.

Then we moved on to the presents under the tree from family. My sister got him a Spiderman punching bag and boxing gloves.

Brek got lots of games and activities from us. One of the activities that we wrapped up for Brek to open was all of our swimming gear. So the day after Christmas, we went over to the Provo Rec Center and went swimming. Brek was disappointed that the big slides weren't open, but we still had a fun time!

The rest of Christmas Day was filled with playing and relaxing. I'm pretty sure we all took naps. Brek and Grandma Jensen went out in the snow (that came that night) and built a snowman. Grandma Jensen of course made Christmas dinner, so several of Joe's siblings stopped by in the evening. Brek had fun seeing cousins and playing. Joe & I got to go deliver dinner to Joe's sister Janelle and her family, who all weren't feeling well. It was a fun and happy day!

On Boxing Day, Joe was invited to go play at the Locust Salon (which is the house of our brother-in-law's brother, who also happens to be a former professor.) Joe was able to borrow a tuba from a friend, and of course enjoys getting to play.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christ-filled Christmas!