Our Merry Christmas!

For Christmas this year, we had a great time visiting with both of our families. We flew to Utah on December 17th after Shane got off work. Landon was so excited to fly on the airplane. We hadn't been on an airplane since last Christmas, so he didn't remember flying. He sat in his seat and looked out the window, anxious for us to take off. As we gained speed and started into the air, he exclaimed, "Woah! We go fast Mommy!" He was entertained most of the flight by just looking out the window. It was one of our greatest flights ever with Landon!

Landon at the Treehouse Museum

We all spent a great week in Utah with Shane's family. Landon had fun going to the Treehouse museum with Grandma and Grandpa, seeing the lights at Christmas village, and most of all, building a huge snowman with his dad and Uncle Kelly! We also we lucky enough to visit with some other friends and family. My favorite teachers at North Ogden had a nice lunch for us when we came to visit, and we had two wonderful family parties with both the Malan aunts, uncles, and cousins one night and the Brewer family the other night. We wish we lived closer to see them more often!

We left Saturday morning to drive to Idaho Falls for Grandpa Landon's 80th birthday party. It was so much fun to celebrate Grandpa's birthday, and to see some of my cousins I had not seen for years! We even got to go to the Landon family Christmas party, a party we haven't been to since Grandma and Grandpa's 50th anniversary in 1999.

The next morning, we woke up early to drive back to Ashland. It was a long drive, but fortunately the roads were fairly clear, and we made it in good time. We were all excited to get back to Ashland to celebrate our first Christmas together since before David's mission. We had fun with my dollar-store birthday party Christmas Eve morning, our "variety" show Christmas Eve night which included a Morris Night Before Christmas, by yours truly, Jingle Bells by Landon, and even a Lip Sync to BAckstreet Boys by David!!! We most of all enjoyed just relaxing and talking together. On Thursday, we all got in the car (again) and drove up to Portland to stay at our house. It was fun to show the in-laws around Portland, and to show all the family our new house. We wish they could have stayed longer than one day! After they left, we drove down with Mom and Dad, David and Camille to Ashland to stay for the New Year. Shane rented a Nintendo Wii, and we had fun bowling, and playing tennis and baseball on the Wii. We also played 10,000, and Shane had an amazing comeback to win the game! It was a great New Years!

Landon dressed as a shepherd for our Nativity.

Landon bowling.

We are sad to have the holiday ending, but so glad we were able to see and visit with so many family and friends. When we got home, we especially loved to read all of the cards and see all the pictures from our family and friends! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

There are so many fun pictures of our trip! Here are a couple slideshows you can watch of our vacation to see some more! (If you want to be able to get back to our blog easily after watching the slideshow, hold down the CTRL key while clicking on the slideshow link.)

Christmas in Utah


Christmas and New Years in Oregon

December 1st Snow

This post is a little late, but December 1st, we watched Landon's friend Jackson for the weekend. They had a lot of fun playing together and only a few minor "that's mine," "that's mine" incidents! The highlight of the weekend was when it started snowing Saturday morning. They two boys weren't content with just looking out the window, so I took some video of them running around in the backyard with the snowflakes. Click here to see the video.

Decorating our Gingerbread House

Last night, for Family Home Evening, we decorated our "Symbols of Christmas" little Christmas tree and decorated our gingerbread house. This year, Shane and I held back and let Landon do all of the decorating. He thought it was pretty fun. He decided he wanted to make smiley faces on the roof. Enjoy the pictures!

Decorating the Christmas Tree

On Monday, for our Family Home Evening activity, we decorated our Christmas tree. Landon was so excited, and he kept saying how pretty our tree was! We even put on some Jim Reeves to keep with Morris family tradition. Here are a few pictures of the tree-decorating!