Christmas and Utah Trip 2009

Okay so here I am again posting things like 4 months late. Sorry! Here are some pics of Ella's first Christmas.
It was such a fun day! She caught on really quick to tearing the paper off the presents,
but she got a little annoyed with us taking the toys away (so she could open another one) when she finally got the paper off. She didn't really understand why she had to tear off all of this paper over and over. The first few times it was fun, but it got old really quick. She was such a cutie!

Later we went to Dan's parents house for a late breakfast.
Dan's cousin Chris was there with his wife Karen and their son, Ben. Ben is just a couple weeks older than Ella and it was cute to watch them play.
I think we're going to have to work with Ella on playing nice because she was kind of a bully. She kept taking the toy and camera case away from Ben. Then when he would take it back she would freak out.
Ben was so sweet because when she would get upset, he would hand the case back over to her. It was really funny to watch.

A little while later it was back to my parents house for presents with my sisters and brother. Ella fell asleep on the drive over there so she missed out on most of the action.
(I love how she's still holding onto the ball she got from Santa)
We all opened presents in a torrent of flying paper:
Look at Kolton's sad face, poor kids had to wait til everyone had a present
Finally the noise woke Ella up and so she too got to open more presents , as you can see she still looked a little sleepy.
At this point she was really sick of all the paper. She would tear open the package then toss it aside.
While Ella was opening presents Dan was having fun playing Hungry, Hungry Hippos. The story behind the picture: for Christmas we drew Kolton's name and so I bought this game for him. As I packed up the presents to come to Utah, Dan saw the game. He was so bummed when I told him it wasn't for us, it was for Kolton! So I'm glad Kolton let Dan play, maybe someday he can have his own Hungry Hippos game. :)
Shortly after all of this fun, my aunts and uncles and cousins and Grandma came over. We had dinner and opened another present. By this time Ella had some energy in her and was being really cute playing around. She loved the little book she got from my Grandma.

To end off the day we went Dan's Grandparents' house.
We snacked a little bit and just enjoyed their company. Although I think they were enjoying the entertainment from Ella. She definitely knows how to put on a show!

While we were on that trip, Stacie brought over the rocking cow (like a rocking horse but a cow) from when her kids were little and Ella thought it was the funnest thing. Kaycie plopped on behind her so she didn't fall off, and away they went.
All in all it was a great Christmas! It was so much fun to watch Ella open presents and play with her new toys. Christmas has taken on that magic that it used to have when I was a kid. I can't wait until next year when she really knows what's going on and gets really excited about things. I was really glad that we were able to share her first Christmas with both of our families. I feel like we lucked out to even be able to go to Utah for Christmas at all. Residency it pretty busy, but it just so happened that Dan was on an easy month and was able to get some time off for us to go.

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