Christmas Overload!

Get ready for the ultimate Christmas Vacation photo OVERLOAD!

We had such a great break and I couldn't narrow down my pictures at all!

We started out on Christmas day at the Valantine house! Evie's first Christmas was a blast!

She got all kinds of new toys, books and bath toys and of course her FAVORITE thing was

.the gift wrap.

As soon as presents were open and the big Valantine Christmas Morning Breakfast was had those traitors took off for a cruise and left us "newly parents" at home :(

.but thats okay.

I was more excited about seeing my sister and brother in law for the first time in 6 months 

AND

Elder Anderson would be calling us that night too!!!

so we took off to Salt Lake with a VERY full car

{I never knew having a baby meant packing around so much stuff!!}

That night was sat around the laptop staring at the Skype home screen waiting and waiting for Ryan to call!

 Of course my mom HAD to buy Evie this cute little Cambodia shirt since it was the first time she'd be meeting Uncle Ryan!

It was so fun to see him smile and laugh again!

We got to talk to him for upwards of 2 hours!

It was awesome, we loved every minute of it, but it was so hard to say goodbye

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Since it was Christmas Day and Santa hadn't come to the Andersons yet we played the rest of the night off like it was Christmas Eve. 

We did all of our Christmas Eve traditions and opened a gift. Read the Night Before Christmas Etc. and then went to bed!

Christmas is much different when you have a baby

For example when you wake up at 5 a.m on Christmas morning it's not because your overly excited about gifts...

 We put Evie in her Christmas Jammies again (middle pic) 

(PLEASE notice the reindeer on the feet!) 

and then we had a blow out so we switched to our other favorite jammies.

.incase you haven't noticed.

Evie has this thing where she is CONSTANTLY sticking her tongue out!

I have about 25 pictures from the holiday with her making a tongue face

 Christmas morning came and went way too fast as usual

I'm the worlds coolest wife and scored my husband a new golf bag and the new Travis Rice Snowboard Video ;)

I made my dad this little license plate plaque for his shop at the Dickens Festival

he has all the license plates from every car he's ever owned hanging on the wall in there so I thought it fit the theme.

I got SUPER spoiled this year and Santa brought me and Ipad 2! 

.which I haven't put down since I opened it...

 After we opened gifts we all took naps, played with our new gadgets and we put "Stinker Butt" into the bath.

Grandma Rainey has the BEST bath sink at her house!

E loves it!

That night I begged and BEGGED and my family took me to see the Zoo Lights!

my 2 favorite things in ONE place!

.It was bliss.

 I loved these snuggly Giraffes so much I made everyone get their pic in front of them ha ha ha 

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The next day I caught a flight and flew out to sunny Newport Beach California to shoot a wedding!

I left SLC at 8 a.m and landed back at 9 p.m that night!

It was fast and crazy but really fun!

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The next morning B and I went to the Draper Temple for my "baby Marni"s wedding

Squid and I met on the first day of the 7th grade

class got over and everyone was crowding the door and I got pushed and fell right on top of her desk!

It was destiny ;)

we stuck together all through high school and 300 miles apart all through college.

I love this girl, she's always her own person and i love that best about her.

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and what sister/mom reunion would be complete without some after christmas shopping!?

We hit up Nordstrom Rack which is almost always a mistake because I can NEVER narrow down my number of shoe choices...

Neither can Evangeline though...

we spent a few days in park city shopping our hearts out while the boys stayed home with the BYU athletics department and Tom Cruise.

Later in the week we made about 20,000,000 calories worth of carmely, chocolately, minty treats

and subsequently ate almost all of them before the week was over...

 for our last night all together we went to park city, had an amazing dinner and then walked main street. We looked through all the galleries and saw all the Christmas lights.

It was such a great week!

The holidays always go by so fast when your older

When your young it NEVER comes

.so unfair.