thanksgiving & christmas 2015

so i'm a little behind on the blogging thing...but i have to record holidays for my sake so here's a little thanksgiving and christmas mashup for ya.

thanksgiving 2015

we were with my family this year for thanksgiving. our family had reserved the ISU institute building so all the little kids could run around and not be cooped up in someone's house. well us bigger cousins are quite the competitive bunch and we (i) decided that we would hold a ping pong tournament. all our family is pretty decent at ping pong so it was quite competitive and a lot of fun. norman and i bought a (cooked) turkey hat that dances for the winner of the tournament. we also played dodgeball, lightening, ate lots of food, watched football, and chatted of course! it was so fun and a nice refreshing change from just eating and sitting around all day. 

christmas 2015

right after normans last class, we were packed and ready to go to pocatello for the break! 2 weeks of partying! we started it off by heading to salt lake to see the lights and go to dinner with my parents, my sister, and her family. i hadn't been in a few years and it's always a special place to be at christmas.

we stayed with my parents the first week and norman's family the second week and had a fabulous time at both. we spent christmas eve with normans family and had a nice dinner and had some funny entertainment from norman's dad, who read us christmas letters to santa from various people (President Monson, Obama, President Benson, Elder Packer, Richard Nixon...etc etc.). We spent christmas morning at my family's house and got spoiled as per usual by both families and had SO much fun playing santa for our little guy. grant still doesn't fully understand the santa thing...or the christmas thing...but he liked opening presents. (except for when i wrapped one of his presents in an old graham cracker box and he thought it was actually graham crackers and got real upset when he found out it was just clothes....)

he got lots of train stuff this year. he's currently obsessed with trains and cars. santa also brought him a bouncy horse (that stayed at my parents...no room for that in a tiny 2 bedroom apt), and a basketball hoop!

i couldn't help but think how weird it is that next year we will have TWO babies at christmas time. it just keeps getting better and better.

we played our annual christmas present game with my family (which i didn't get pictures of) and it was a blast as per usual. probably one of my favorite parts of christmas. 

At our big annual christmas party on my mom's side of the family we did a costume competition where everyone had to dress up in what they felt was the most "christmas-y". well, me being pregnant, i thought it would be perfect to dress up as mary, joseph, and a shepherd. grant won his age group for best costume, and our family won as the "best family costume". it was a blast!

the power went out for about an hour and a half on christmas eve so norm and i played santa's helpers in the dark, with a head lamp, putting stuff together!

hope everyone had a great holiday season as well and a late merry christmas to you all!!