Brinks III: White Christmas

So I might have gone a little overboard with the sheer amount of pictures but I vowed to not suck at taking pictures and I was actually pretty good at that for a few weeks. Monday, December 17th we went down to Naples in Long Beach with a bunch of people from my ward and my mom and Lindsay. It's by far one of my favorite Christmas traditions. The lights are spectacular and the cider and goodies afterwards are super awesome. Becca bought Daniel and Clayton some glasses that when you looked at the lights it made each one look like a star. They were pretty cool. Daniel, however, did not look so cool. But he did look pretty awesome.

This was Daniel's favorite house.

Logan's first time looking at Christmas lights was a success. He was very taken with this little train set.

On Saturday, December 22nd we drove to Utah. We left at like 4:45 in the am hoping the boys would sleep. Daniel did after about a half hour of talking non-stop. This was the first trip where we got the "are we almost there?" like a million times before we got to the state line. Both the boys were rock stars on the trip up, even if I did have to do some lets call it unconventional feedings to hold Logan over. Daniel was so excited to see everyone when we got there. Maybe not as excited as Brady here though.

Daniel wanted to show Papa his Lightning McQueen computer and Papa was happy to have some snuggle time.

The monster that is Jackson. Not that this picture shows it - he was just hanging out with Logan on the floor and Logan was loving it. Seriously, at 13 he's at least 2 inches taller than me and he's like a for real teenager. I still feel like all these kiddos are the same age as when I first met them 7 years ago. It's a little weird.

Reece and Daniel playing Candyland, one of his new favorite games.

Julie has these letters that spell out believe and it makes her so mad when people switch the letters around. So of course that means that the men ALWAYS want to do it. These were the most common.

Daniel and Reece dancing. And by that I mean Reece dancing while Daniel stands up there next to her.

On Christmas Eve morning, we woke up to a bunch of snow. This is Logan's first time being in the snow and it doesn't seem to bug him. Although it wasn't that cold yet so it wasn't a big deal. That day it snowed and snowed and snowed. Like "we had to use the 4 wheel drive in our car" snowed. It didn't snow on Christmas day itself but then it snowed the next 2 and a half days after that. It dumped so much snow that TJ was telling us that he hasn't seen that much snow since they moved out there. It was a pretty bad storm. And of course the days it snowed were the days that we had to drive places. Contrary to popular belief (and by that I mean Matt's family), I don't mind the snow. I think it's super pretty, I don't mind the cold (for real you're not out in it that much anyways), and it's fun to be out in playing. I do not, however, like driving in it. I know that 5 years ago I had a series of panic attacks driving through the mountains in Colorado through a snow storm but in my defense, I had never experienced it before and we were on winding, icy roads next to cliffs. I still won't drive in it because I don't know how. I think people who don't know how to shouldn't be allowed because those, along with those that think they are invincible, are the ones that cause the accidents, harming innocent people who are driving safely. I did not have a single problem with driving in the snow this trip. Promise. I wasn't a fan or anything but no freak outs.

Later that day, we all went to Build a Bear to make a bear to give to a children's wing of the hospital. It was a super cute idea and I think it's one that we are going to do every year from now on and donate to the hospital where Nathan was born.

Daniel chose a bear that had hearts all over it and dressed him in a Lightning McQueen outfit.

Everyone with their bears.

LouLou got Natalie and Madison together to make these super cute snowflakes. When she first started I thought wow, how the crap is that supposed to be a snowflake but there was a lot more to it so I just wasn't being patient enough. Super cute, right?

The Brinks 2 elf, Buddy, and our elf, Harry. Reece and Daniel weren't sure if they were friends and then sure enough the next morning, they were next to each other in the tree. Guess that question has been answered. TJ kept saying that our elf was Ramon because he had darker skin. Daniel constantly corrected him.

Daniel made me this beautiful bracelet at preschool so I wore it at Christmas Eve dinner.

We came up with the idea of dressing up for dinner, like the Griswalds, so we did. TJ did his hair super awesome and then we realized that Logan had the same hair so we took a picture of the boys with their "handsome hair."

Then after dinner, we heard a knock at the door. And weren't we surprised when SANTA himself walked in. He took pictures with all the kids, gave out candy canes, and sang jingle bells with us. Daniel had the most special look on his face. This is seriously the best picture I got.

Yes Colton is completely passed out here. And yes, Josh decided that this was the best way to reward that.

The mountain of presents - and this isn't even what Santa brought because Santa set up his gifts, unwrapped in different parts of the room. I guess that's what happens when you have 21 people in one house.

Daniel's gifts from Santa.

Logan's gifts from Santa

Daniel, Josh, and Jackson all sleeping downstairs Christmas Eve night.

And the moment you've all been waiting for - CHRISTMAS MORNING!

Daniel got lego sets, an angry bird, Avengers bobble heads and a lightning mcqueen umbrella. Which he then proceeded to organize...

TJ had the idea that we would open presents (not from Santa obviously) one at a time to make Christmas morning last and that way people could actually see what the other people got. We all thought it was a fantastic idea. We opened one at a time and the kids were actually really good sports about it.

I'm not sure what I love most about this picture - Daniel's intense look opening his present, or Peyton's finger up the nose. Both were a spectacular catch.

Daniel got the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and after he had opened 2 of them, this was how he decided to carry them around.

Right before intermission - the break of opening presents to have some yummy breakfast - there was the opening of a much anticipated present. It was labeled to TJ, Ali, Lindsay, and Matt and no one knew what could be in the box.

What is it? WHAT IS IT?

The scramble!

About a month before we all had a text conversation about the "chocolate plate" which was just a brown tupperware plate that they had growing up. Well, LouLou found a set online that she bought for them and they grabbed which ever one they could. TJ, anticipating the plate about halfway through the opening process, was the victor in obtaining the chocolate plate. Ali does not look happy about it....

This is how many presents we had at intermission - half way through. It's a little ridiculous.

Logan was not able to stay awake for the whole morning!

Seriously what's wrong with these smiles?

For serious, how cute is this little elf?

Brady got these little racer things that Daniel was just so freaking excited about the entire house could hear it. Matt asked if it was something we should get Daniel and I was thinking about how loud he got and vetoed the idea.

The rest of the week we spent at Jackson's basketball tournament and I have no idea why I don't have any pictures of them but his team won first place in his age group. Whoo hoo!

And finally, also for Christmas, Daniel got a big boy bike with training wheels. He didn't much understand when we were in Utah and we showed him a picture of his bike next to the tree but he got the hang of it soon after we got home! He's a little racer!