Visiting Utah after Christmas (Dec 26 - Jan 8, 2012)

After Christmas we flew out to Utah to spend some time with my parents and family.  Amazingly, my parents and all five of us siblings and our families were able to be together in one place - at least for 24 hours until Brad had to fly home. :)  But the rest of us got to spend nearly a week all together and it was awesome!

One night we exchanged presents with each other, and that was fun.

Sammy LOVED the fluffy polar bear that his Grammy gave him, as well as the soft homemade quilt she made for him. When he opened them up, he was so excited and gave his polar bear kisses and immediately snuggled with his quilt.  It was cute. :) 

Grammy prepared lots of crafts and games for the grandkids.  She is so fun!

Sammy and his big cousin, Connor, who was super sweet to him the whole time.

Eliza enjoyed getting bedtime stories from Grammy.  Papa sometimes laid with Ben and Eliza at bedtime and told them exciting bedtime stories of his famous chipmunk buddies, Chip and Chipper.  :)

Sammy and Papa playing together.

The kids loved playing on the trampoline outside.  I snapped a picture of Eliza with her cousin, Wesley, playing together.

It was so nice outside for being the last week of December. The boys had fun catching the football in the backyard. Here are TJ and Jed vying for the catch.

This was funny - while Ben bounced around, Eliza held this stiff position to keep from getting jostled. She looked pretty funny like that.

Connor let Ben play some games on his new iPod. TJ and Connor were so sweet to all their littler cousins the whole trip.

A picture of the girls all together. :)  Amy, Mindy, Mom, Melanie, Brittany, and me. (Amy, Brittany and I are due in March/April.)

And some of our guys. :)  Eric, Jed, Brad, and Dad. Griff and Matt were around somewhere...

 Gabe & Nyah and Ben & Eliza had a blast playing in the Christmas Tree box, until they got booted by the big prickly tree. So rude.

Somehow Sam got himself in this doll stroller and Nyah had a blast pushing him around, and he was really enjoying it too. It was so funny!

If there's one thing I can count on with my family getting together, it is lots of evening games around the kitchen table!! We had so much fun playing games nearly every night.This was a new game, called Lost Cities, and it was really fun for a group.

Brittany treated me to a pedicure for Christmas. We went together and got pampered! It was a lot of fun to go with her. :)

I packed all of Ben and Eliza's snow clothes all the way from Michigan, but there was not one bit of snow in Utah for more than a week of our stay, until one morning we got a skiff of snow and they were so excited! They saw it as soon as they awoke, and Ben being the ultra-independent boy that he is, practically got himself and Eliza all dressed up to go outside before I even was aware of what they were up to!

(Obviously there wasn't SO much snow that you could roll around in it safely. Apparently, he hit a mud patch. :) )

Mom, Brittany, Mindy and I took the kids to Cabellas to see the aquariums, the animals, and best of all, shoot the guns! Ben got the hang of it by the end and was actually hitting nearly all of his marks! Very impressive. :)

Mom helping Eliza aim her gun.

Brittany with Gabe & Nyah.

While all five sisters were together in Utah, we did a live TV segment for Salt Lake City's KUTV Channel 2 News.  We featured a Fondue Party theme and demonstrated how to make Chocolate Coconut Almond Fondue from our cooking website, The Sisters Cafe.  Here we are setting up our display in their test kitchen.

After the filming was all over, we got a picture with the news anchors who did the segment with us, and then we all enjoyed some of the fondue together. :)  As you might notice, Amy (blue stripes), Brittany (in red), and I (red stripes) are all pregnant, and due within five weeks of each other. :)
We had a great time doing a cooking segment on TV while we were all together in Utah. :)

On New Years Eve, we pulled out all our Fondue preparations from our TV segment and had a big fondue party at midnight!  We paused all the games and gathered around the table for awhile, enjoying all the treats. It was a lot of fun! 

We had a great time in Utah! This picture was taken on our first Sunday, a few hours before Jed flew back to Michigan to work. I stayed with the kids for one more week.

More pics to come...