A Utah Christmas

This year, we packed up the car and drove to Utah for Christmas. It was a long drive, but we broke it up and stayed the night half way, which turned out to be the best idea for the girls. Once we arrived, Nana and Papa had lots of fun things on the agenda to keep us busy. Here are the highlights from our trip.

Nana spent the first night making gingerbread cookies with the girls, to leave out for Santa. Gracelyn had so much fun cutting them out and decorating them. Addie had fun making a mess in the flour that Uncle Blake put on her tray :)The girls got all dressed up for Christmas Eve Service at Nana and Papa's church. Gracelyn especially loved the fact that she got to hold her own candle at the end of the service, while we sang Silent Night.

The girls were silly and giddy as we got ready for bed on Christmas Eve. I wasn't sure if we were ever going to be able to get them to sleep. They were so excited to leave out their cookies and milk for Santa. And Gracelyn insisted that we leave Santa a healthy treat too, so we included some apples and celery sticks along with his gingerbread cookies. :)
The girls were up bright and early on Christmas morning, and were thrilled to find their presents. Gracelyn's favorites were her new Barbies, her TAG reading pen (a pen that you can put on the words in the book and it reads them out loud), and her new books. Addie especially loved her new musical turtle with letters, her owl pillow, and all the candy in her stocking. We could barely get her to pay attention to any presents, once she found the candy.Even though it was bitter cold, we did not get to have a white Christmas this year, but it did snow enough the day after Christmas to play in the front yard and make a tiny snowman. The girls were so proud of it. They also LOVED riding on Papa's 4 wheeler. They would beg him to take them out for a ride almost every day.Papa surprised Gracelyn with tickets to the Nutcraker. We had such a great time. Gracelyn loved it! We were hoping to get up to the mountains to play in the snow, but after Christmas, some pretty bad weather rolled in and kept us from getting up there. But as always, we had a great time spending quality time with our family. We are so thankful for the huge blessing that they are in our lives. We miss them all already and can't wait to see them again soon!