Christmas #2: Arizona

This Christmas, we headed down to the land of warm winters and spent about twelve days with Matt's wonderful family. All the siblings were home together, the sun was always shining, and there was Mexican food everywhere you looked. Perfection!

Jude spent the break working on his pirate face. I think he's got it down, but he should probably lose the preppy sweater vest if he wants to be taken seriously.

Steph brought her boyfriend Kevin home for Christmas since his parents are away on a mission. If you can't tell by his expression here, he fit in right away.

Per tradition, we all decorated the tree together. It was Matt's year to put up the star.

Josh spent a lot of time moving presents around, stacking them just right and wondering out loud what was inside each one. He was a little confused why none of the presents said his name. There are always code names on the presents in the Snow home. Cheri chooses a theme each year and assigns a character to each person, not to be revealed until Christmas day so no one can guess their gifts prematurely. We've been the Ninja Turtles, the Simpsons, and this year we were Snow White's seven dwarfs. 

Our time in Arizona was filled with lots of tickling...

lots of delicious home-cooking...

and lots of baby-snuggling.

Even though there's usually plenty of couch space, this is how we like to sit.

All the sibs dressed up one day so Matt could introduce them to the delectable Capital Grille. Mmmm...yesss.  If you can't tell, Matt is trying to be taller than everyone else. He feels really self conscious when he has to look up at people because it doesn't happen very much unless he's home. This is my shrimpy life in the Snow household. I am actually wearing heels here and I still feel like a dwarf. 

This little one was so tuckered out by all fun he was having that he would pass out randomly. Michelle was good enough to let him sleep on her, apparently not fearing one little bit that he'd sleep-pee all over her lap and/or laptop.

These two -- joined at the hip.

On Christmas Eve the Snows had their traditional dinner of Swiss steak and buche de noel cake, with a bunch of guests and a talent program. After everyone went home, we opened our Christmas jammies!  Michelle and Andrew would like me to mention that although they are matching, they are not a couple. Just in case you were confused.

As usual, there were feats of manly strength going on around every corner.

On Christmas morning we woke up early to open stockings before church. 

We all had to beat church early for choir, and most of us played in a last minute bell choir as well. It was actually pretty fun! Wish I had gotten some pictures wearing those sweet gloves.

Jude sacked out during church on the ward baby whisperer, brother Greer. Merry Christmas to everyone! He never naps at church when he's supposed to!

Hooray for our first decent family photo! Must have been Christmas magic. 

After church, we came home and jumped right back into our jammies to open presents. Josh found the Christmas carrot, so he got to open the first gift. Look at that proud face!

Jude was proud of himself for climbing up on the presents. He kept doing it over and over again, even after falling every which way.

Somebody had to help Grandpa sort all the presents.

And somebody should tell Kevin never to make that face again. At least not on Christmas. We could hear children screaming in fright from miles away.

Josh's favorite gift was probably this airplane set that shoots little dart things, which he calls cannon balls.

Traintastic Cargo was a close second, though. We have already played it 4,000 times. He also became obsessed with the game "Sorry" on this trip. The family was so nice to take turns playing it with him.

Rolling around in the Christmas loot!

Everyone got a card game in their stocking, so we got to play a few different versions of Flux. Here we're playing Zombie Flux. It's important to look like actual zombies during the game. Play hard or go home.

Kevin taught us another card game called Durak. It means "idiot" in Russian, so whoever loses has to do something stupid, like shove a grape up their nose or eat a pine needle from the Christmas tree. As you can see, I totally dominated.... I mean was dominated.

We really had a fun time. Before I left with the boys for California, Cheri wanted a picture of me next to the puzzle I helped with. It was actually Steph and Kevin's project, but I kind of invited myself in by super-gluing my pants to the couch until it was finished. I can't help it. Christmas isn't Christmas without a good puzzle.

And off we went to Redding to spend New Years with my family! That post coming soon, I hope. Last time I went home there were so many pictures that I just didn't post any of them and acted like the trip never happened. That was July.