Christmas at Memma and Pampa's

We took a trip to Las Vegas to see Grandma and Grandpa Hill this Christmas (as well as half my siblings).  It was a great trip, and this post will have a LOT of pictures.

We saw a lot of pretty scenery on the drive down

 went through tunnels

Passed No Name, Colorado

and the kids slept a lot

When we finally got to Vegas (after 13 hours of driving), they were so glad to get out of the car

Grandma and Grandpa were so glad to see them

We arrived just in time to celebrate Uncle Nano's birthday, and Erin was so excited about a "burfday cake!"

Then Abby arrived and they girls hit it off

and hung out with Grandpa

 Grandma made a special apron for Erin and the two of them made gingerbread cookie dough together.

 

 

Christmas Eve we went to Honeybaked Ham to get a ham, and the kids were cute in the car

and Patrick played Peekaboo

 

And Patrick learned to put things on his head

 

Luckily Mesh just laid back most of the time and let the kids abuse him.

Patrick loved the nutcrackers.  Erin was scared of them at first but warmed up over time.

 

Christmas morning we opened stockings first.  It was fun to watch Patrick tear at the paper.  Erin got so excited about opening things that she wanted to help everyone.

Matt hid my present and my reaction was "should I be opening this in front of my family????"

 

 

But it turns out he'd walked into Victoria's Secret just to get a bag to put this in

And Patrick practiced his "put in/take out" skills with the bag.

We went in with siblings on a gift for each of my parents.  Dad's was a 50 gallon aquarium and stand

And mom's was for an appointment to get a pair of glasses.  She was on the phone with Adrienne when she opened the letter, and her reaction was so great.

Erin finally got over her fear of nutcrackers when she realized that she could open and shut their mouths.  She would say "Ahhh!" when she opened their mouths, it was so cute.

Abby got a desk, and the girls played with Erin's color wonder finger paints together.

And the girls loved the new aquarium.

 

A couple pictures of Erin in her outfit for Aunt Adrienne (thank you!!)

I told Erin to open her eyes and she started trying to hold her eyelids open with her fingers

Patrick was cuddling with Grandpa and Erin got jealous.

Family picture minus Abby

It was sad when we had to leave.  Matt got a picture of the Las Vegas temple from the road.

The Virgin River Gorge

Mom, are these the hoodoos you meant?

Yay for Cheezits, they were a hit

And these are from this morning, playing with Christmas toys.  The table was Erin's "big" present, but we didn't take it to Vegas with us.  We put it together last night.

 

messages from Santa

One for Erin

One for Patrick

Our daily walk

Okay, so it's not really daily, but it was 50 degrees today and so we HAD to go out.
Bunny got to be keeper of the Christmas cards.  Erin was so excited to be outside!

 When we stopped at the playground the first thing that Erin did was head for the ladder. I know that Marcus has been doing it for a while and probably does it a lot faster than Erin, but she's the type that likes to KNOW she can do something before she tries.  lol.  She's also very careful about where she puts her feet.

 And then Patrick looked like he wanted to try

And Erin found a ball up at the top, and brought it down (in the second pic she's talking about the airplane)

Isn't he just adorable??