Christmas in Idaho

I had seen online that the Botanical Gardens in Boise put lights up for Christmas, and you can go and walk around. I talked my mom into meeting us up there on our way through, and it was fun (cold) to walk around. We walked up to the top, and the view was great.

We arrived a few days before Christmas, and it was nice to just chill, and have time to relax! We had the kids open a lot of presents before we left, but we did have a few that we stuck under the tree once we got there. Carson and Tara were being ornery with each other, and kept coming up with different rules of why you would only be getting underwear for Christmas from Santa. They kept threatening each other, so Santa finally gave in, and brought everybody underwear! Carson was pretty peeved, especially because he was certain he was going to be getting a DS (I know I'm a sellout, don't judge :))
Because Santa didn't want Christmas morning to be "over until all of the gifts were unwrapped, that little sneak hid Carson's last present as you can see in the bottom picture above, it took him a good 15 minutes to find it, it was pretty humorous, well funny for me... You can see below how impressed he is with his new underwear :) At one point he was so mad that he tried to throw them all away, so whiny!
I love having a little girl, growing up with 5 sisters, I just relate:) I like buying tutu's, and dolly's, and princess stuff it just makes me happy, and I'm glad that I have a little girl to be able to share that with.
On the other hand, I love having a little boy who I can get all of the gee whiz stuff for. I always thought it was cool to build legos, and play outside, I never did figure out how to ride a skateboard, but sometimes it is fun just to get dirty.
While we were visiting, we had quite the array of hair do's by Aunt Tara, on Christmas Eve, I decided to give her and Natalie matching Cindy Lou Who hair, I thought it was awesome.

Matt, Jen & Kaiya came on Christmas day, and it was so fun to watch the baby girls play together, I love that they are already best friends, and can't wait for them to grow up together, maybe someday they will live close by.

One of the things I love about going to my mom's is that we can just relax and hang out. The kids would enjoy a leisurely breakfast, and then just chill in the morning, it was splendid. I had to get a pic of Garry and the kiddo's when they were sleeping, they both lay just like him, I have never been a back sleeper, but they all seem to enjoy it.

While we were down there, we got to go skating again, and Carson had a great time. Thank goodness for grandma this time around, Garry and I could actually skate and have a good time without having to worry about Natalie, she certainly didn't want to miss out on anything though!

I always get the kids their own Christmas ornament each year as well as a family one that usually has a picture slot in it, I didn't get any pics of the kids in front of the tree this year before Christmas, so I had them take a few before we took it down. Sometimes, I just think they are too cute for words.