We had a BLAST in Utah. It was a mile a minute with a wedding, Christmas, family dinners, family parties, and a house literally brimming with kids and grandkids! We packed a lot into each day and Liam has never been happier. He basically ignored me the entire trip and had the run of the house with his cousins. My parents garage was like a treasure trove of my childhood toys. One by one the boxes came out unveiling little bits of my past. Apparently my parents have saved every single toy we ever played with (including half-naked barbies with homemade haircuts and outfits made of old socks). It was fun, and weird to see my own son playing with the very same toys I played with as a kid. My dad is such a good sport and is often found down on the floor playing with toys, playing pretend, or just giving hugs and kisses to the grandkids.
My mom always knows how to bring magic to the holidays! She had the grandkids gathered around to help make a gingerbread train to fill with candy. Obviously Liam enjoyed the candy part immensely. That face says 'pure joy' (or constipation)...but most likely joy:)
Here he is being Rudolph...with a green nose?
After candy train making they snuggled up by the fire on their brand new pillow pets (a darling welcome gift from grandma) and had a story. It's so nice to sit back and watch your child be loved and entertained by someone else!
Liam and I were in Utah for a week before Dan joined us. Utah was SO dry, that whole first week (which was disappointing because I was dying to have snow for the holidays). Meanwhile Dan sent me this photo of our backyard in Vancouver! Literally the day after I left, Vancouver received a magical downpour of snow! I couldn't believe it.
One of the highlights of the trip was the Dahle family Christmas party. Liam spent the whole party running amuck while I sat and tried to determine just how dangerous he was being and whether or not it was worth standing up to chase him again! (I was really missing Dan by now:)
Santa makes an annual appearance at this party, and I thought Liam would be a little freaked out. He loves to talk about Santa, but it's alway scary to see him in the flesh. So I was shocked and delighted to see Liam's excitement and pure love for Santa Claus. All the kids were gathered on the stage and waiting for Santa to pull their gift from a bag and be called to his knee. This proved to be the biggest test of patience Liam has ever experienced! He started out okay, taking out his excitement through kisses for Ali...
But then he started escaping and running to Santa trying to talk to him. His cousin Nyah kept trying to contain him!
I took some pretty good video of his reactions. In the first one it's hard to hear, but he tells Santa that he's been a good boy:) So cute! I was really surprised that he even remembered that was part of the equation.
Finally Santa called a helper to come and look through the bags and find Liam's gift specifically so he could just have his turn already! Just before I started filming Santa asked Liam if he lives in Canada. Once again, I was so surprised by his specific response:)
You have to love how he just assumes that because he told Santa he wanted a toy car, then there would obviously just be a toy car inside the box. Luckily...by some miracle...that is exactly what was in the box! This might have created a bad precedence:)
Trying to be patient yet again while he waits for all of his cousins to see Santa.
Look at all those kids lined up! This is the first time I have been able to get all five grandkids in one photo! Not an easy task.
Before Santa got up to leave, Liam gave him one final hug. Talk about melting my heart! It made the night of chaos totally worth it:)
Movies and ice cream. So pleased.
This was a game all of their own invention. I was downstairs and I could hear the kids stampeding through the house laughing and screaming. I finally came up to see what they could possibly be doing. Come to find out they had gotten ahold of some wrapping paper tubes and were placing them up to each others' bums and making farting sounds! This went on for SO LONG! You have to love the creativity of this game:) And without any help from the adults.
Amidst the chaos of family gatherings we were able to get out a few times to see friends. We met up with some of our bestest friends from Berkeley, who were also in Utah for the holidays. It was SO good to see them! Liam and Lucy have a long history together. She just might be the ONE:)
And we got to see our long time, and long loved friends Heather and Eagan. I was friends, and briefly roommates, with Heather in college. This was our first time seeing each other in four or five years! There is nothing like reminiscing with old friends.
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