Christmas, New Years, & 2 VERY long car rides!

So this post is a tad bit late but better late than never (beware there are a ton of photos)! At the end of December Chad had a 2 week break for Christmas. We decided instead of flying that we would take the long drive to go back to Utah for that break (crazy I know). It was a TON cheaper doing it this way and we didn't have to worry about packing way light or shipping things back. It was nice but we loaded down our car on the way back lol.

Anyways, we thought that the drive was gonna be bad with Lincoln so we decided to drive through the night. Lincoln slept pretty much the whole time both ways. On the way to Utah we were doing really good and Chad and I were wide awake and catching up on some talking! We would have driven the whole night if we didn't have to stop 4 hours away from our destination because of weather. We got a motel room for a few hours and caught a few ZZZ's (or at least Chad, Kort and Lincoln did lol). Needless to say I will not be sleeping in the same bed with Lincoln ever again :). Here is a picture of how we started out (all in the same bed)!

At about 7:30 am we were on the road again. This was the time that Lincoln was awake. We finally made it to Utah around 11 am. We were relieved and my family was sooo excited for us to get there! Our first thing we did since we hadn't really eaten anything but junk that morning we went and picked us up some Cafe Rio (yummy and sooo missed it)! After that we just crashed and hung out with the family (we were in bed by 9, long day)!

The following Monday we made the trek down to Salt Lake to have Kristen take our family pictures (which turned out AMAZING!) and to go to temple square to see the lights! After seeing the lights we all went to IHop and had a blast just hanging out together laughing!

Our GQ model!

  First time tasting snow!

Christmas eve we had a dinner with my family and opened our Christmas Eve jammies then watched Mr Kruger's Christmas before we all hit the hay! We were all so excited to have Christmas the next morning with a little one! The spirit and excitement of Christmas totally changes with a little one around (even though he is only 10 months)!

The next morning I was so excited for Lincoln to get his presents and thought he would absolutely love opening the presents. I was so wrong. He wanted nothing to do with opening them and he had a couple toys that he got that caught his interest. Everything else got shoved to the side! It was still fun and everyone seemed to get everything they wanted! Oh and everyone LOVED watching Lincoln play with his new toys!

Later that day we ventured down to Salt Lake to spend the rest of the day with Chad's family. It is a little bit crazier there since there are now 6 grandkids and my sister-in-law's boyfriend's 2 boys were there with him as well! But is still was a lot of fun! Right at first it was full blown Christensen chaos but then Michelle got it all under control and we were able to enjoy seeing everyone open their gifts! Again, more happy campers with their gifts! After presents Chad and I ventured off to the movies with Bryan and Kristen! A much needed time away from the babe! We saw the Hobit which was much better than the first one!

 The turtle & the tank!

Lincoln and Kort ended up sick the following day. Kort threw up blood and we had to take him in to the vet and figured out that him throwing up could be caused by stress (which totally makes sense). Lincoln also woke up throwing up. Poor thing couldn't keep anything down but also wasn't fussy. He would throw up and then he was happy and playing again. He did sit on my or my mom's lap all day but we didn't mind that! Luckily he started holding small amounts of stuff down in the afternoon.

Friday night we took a trip to Provo to visit my Uncle Paul and Aunt Vicki where we sat in their sauna and my dad and Chad played with my Uncle Paul's helicopter. Saturday we got ready and packed up to head down to Salt Lake but before we did that we headed to the Jenkins family Christmas party! It was fun and everyone got to see Lincoln and I got to talk to cousins that I haven't talked to in a while. After the party we headed down to Salt Lake to go to dinner at Michelle's boyfriend Jeff's house and play games. A few minutes after being there I came down with what Lincoln had a couple days later and ended up throwing up the whole rest of the night. I felt bad because we had to leave early to go home (to the in-law's house) and missed out on games with everyone at Jeff's. I found out that my whole entire family was sick as well so I was glad that I had a bathroom all to myself!

That next week was pretty relaxed. We pretty much just hung out at the house. We ventured out to the mall once and to Nonna's for lunch one day. We also had our friends Rob and Bianca over and made homemade pizzas and met there puppy Millie! The most fun we had down there would be hands down New Years Eve. Bryan's family came over and Michelle and Jeff were there as well. We ate dinner and after dinner we had a fun time planned with the kids since they wanted to bring in the new year as well! Kristen planned some fun Minute to Win It games. We laughed so hard and I'm pretty sure the kids thought it was the funnest thing (besides the Wii)! We went to Saving Mr Banks on New Years day (which I thought was really good).

Thursday my little brother Ty received his mission call so that night we headed to Heber to see him open it. He has been called to serve in the Monterey Mexico West mission! I couldn't be more proud of him! Love him to death!

Friday we headed back up to Heber to go to my mom's family work party at Soldier Hollow. We went tubing for the first couple hours which was really fun. We took Lincoln down the kid hill but he didn't really care too much about it. After that we had lunch at the Soldier Hollow Grill. After lunch we headed back to my parents house to put Lincoln down for a nap. My little brother Ty stayed home while we all went to the movie theater that my mom's boss rented out to watch Dispicable Me 2. We then headed back to Salt Lake to finish out our stay in Utah!

Even my 80 year old Grandma was hitting up the tubing hill! She loved it!

I had to post all of the pictures of Ty holding Lincoln because he doesn't do it very often but you can tell that he absolutely loves his nephew!

He decided he wanted to start kissing me! It was adorable!

Saturday night we said our goodbye's after packing up the van (chuck full I might add) and hit the road! The drive back was definitely harder on us but we drove through the night and didn't have any delays! We arrived home around 10 am and while Lincoln took his first nap that day we crashed as well before we unloaded the car and returned it to the airport!

It was a perfect trip and we enjoyed every bit of it. It is always bitter sweet leaving family but it is nice to be back home! We love each one of you that made that trip special in your own way!