A Seattle Christmas

To say we were spoiled with family time during the holidays would be an understatement! After a week at Disneyland with the Taylors we flew straight to Seattle to spend a week and a half with the Osbornes. Lydie is now a flying veteran with 8 plane rides to boast of. What is she going to do without grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, and cousins to give her constant attention?

Krystal had a bomb Mexican dinner waiting for us the night we flew in.

Of course Kyle & Cory are too busy stuffing their faces to smile.

Notice the sour cream on Kyle's chin?

That means it was really good.

But the best thing we arrived to that night was a surprise visit by Kari-Lynn & Macey! They decided to leave their menfolk behind for a week to come party with the rest of us. I was thrilled to get some shots of the little girls together.

Lydia is just 6 weeks older than Macey. 

How lucky are these chickies? Judging by these pictures, I'd say Lyd has already decided that they're good friends.

All of the fun couples ready to party Christmas style...and yes, that is a brother kissing his sister's head. But when you're both spouseless for the week you gotta improvise, right? Okay, so it's a little wrong.

When we weren't out and about, we filled our time with lots of movies, puzzles, & games.

Of the 3 times we played Sequence, team Kyle & Sarah remained undefeated.

Boo Yeah.

Teaching the babies some pool.

By far, the game we played the most was Dance Central on the Kinect.
Just look at them gettin' down.
Once you get past the fact that you're white, you have to shake your booty in front of a room full of people laughing at you, AND you're being recorded, it's dang fun.
But I'll keep the many videos taken under lock and spare you all my thug moves.

The 3 doctors. (Well, almost.)
And what goes hand-in-hand with adjustments?

Massages, of course.

Patty cake :) They are "throwing it in the oven."

 Grandma love.

Grandpa love.

Rhonda surprised the girls by telling us we had to open our Christmas gift early. So after a night in the hot tub we all gathered in the den for the big reveal.

A shopping spree!!
I was. SO. EXCITED. You don't even know.

We left in the morning...

And didn't get back until that night!
Midway through, we lunched at Panera. Such a fabulous day with 3 of my very favorite ladies (4 including Macers!).

As per tradition, we gathered at Grandpa Ross & Grandma Elaine's house for dinner one night.

 Left: Cousin Erica
Right: Grandpa Ross

As always, Elaine made amazing food!

How cute are these?
I love that both Lydie and Macey are mesmerized by their Great Grandpa in the picture to the right.

Speaking of amazing dinners...

We were spoiled by a homemade dinner every night. I miss it already.
K-L made her fabulous coconut shrimp. I don't eat shrimp. EVER. But I ate this shrimp :)

One tradition that the Osbornes had growing up was to pick a family in need and do something special for them during Christmas time. We were so excited that Rick and Rhonda decided to resurrect the tradition and include all of us. They chose an amazing couple with 5 kids and a grandmother living together. We were each assigned a person and  headed out to Wal-Mart.

We had such a great time roaming the toy aisles for the kiddos and consulting everyone else on our choices.

We picked out the goods.

Wrapped them up pretty.

And snuck out into the night.

On one of the more special evenings, the Woodwards & the Lamprechts came over to watch us record the story of how Rick & Rhonda met. Rhonda asked if I would write a book about it someday. It's a ridiculously cute story & I hope I can do it justice.

Before Cory and Kari-Lynn had to head back to their families, we all met at the office for family pics.

Grandma let Lydie open her cute  little Christmas jammies early.

"My First Christmas"

On Christmas Eve, we had a big family party over at the Lamprecht's house

The kid table :) I wonder what the cut off age is?

All the girls lovin' on Lyd.

After gettin' jiggy with it in the basement, we had some fabulous festive dessert...

Cousin Kiley & Aunt Linda

And played the candy bar game.

And before we knew it, it was Christmas!

We spent Christmas morning at Rick & Rhonda's ward. The program had amazing performances with both singing and instruments. It was the perfect way to start our day with the spirit being felt so strongly.

Then Ross & Elaine came over and the gift giving began!

:) Golf will always mean love.

What, shoes?! 

That I picked out on the shopping spree? Yep :)

Ready, set, go!

Kyle's so cute. He gifted me different chores around the house as well as 5 massage vouchers.

Of course, everyone's most exciting gift is hidden somewhere in the house awaiting a rousing game of "boola boola." Everyone says "boola boola" progressively louder or softer depending on if the searcher is getting close.

Pure Joy.

Kyle and Daniel's "boola boola" was remote control helicopters. All week long Kyle dropped hints that that's what he wanted for Christmas. And because his mama loves him, she took the bait. 

Speaking of pure joy, I'm in love with these shots!

Rhonda's "boola boola" was a sweet new phone hidden in the mail box :)

Lyd's turn! She took a 3 hour nap (her first & last...ever) during all of the previous festivities.

Merry First Christmas, sweetie pie!

Grandma and Grandpa spoiled her...

Later that night, we had a gingerbread house making party.

We turned on "Elf" and spent the next 2 hours dedicating ourselves to these masterpieces.

Glorious.

Cory, Tenille, Miley, & Makayla got back into town just in time to spend a day with us!

Tenille practiced applying makeup on me with her new kit that she'll be using for brides.
Take a good look, you'll never see me with this much makeup on again.
If only I had Tenille to do my makeup every morning...

Rick led the annual making of pigs in a blanket from scratch.

And all of us (including Lyd) were very glad he did.

Yum!

Christmas was more than amazing! Thank you Rick & Rhonda for everything you planned and all of the work you put forth so we could have such a fun time! I couldn't help constantly popping my camera out.

So, I know what you blog readers are thinking. "Sarah, enough with the pictures already!" But, I'll have you know, I omitted nearly 100 pics that I could have included. And, as difficult as it was, the following activities went undocumented:

* Multiple walks and jogs along the gorgeous trails.
* 2 on 2 basketball at the church
* A sewing date with Elaine where she took in a skirt for me that was several sizes too big (she's AMAZING)
* A date night for Kyle and I doing a session at the Seattle Temple (thank you Aunt Kiki & Uncle Daniel for babysitting!)

And you know what they say: if you didn't take a picture, it didn't happen. At least, that's what I say when I'm explaining to Kyle why he's posing for his 20th time. You agree?  And you already know I'm a picture junkie so that's what you expect to see when you come to my blog? (wink) Well okay, here's one more for the road: