After Christmas I saw other bloggers getting their Christmas recap photos up within a day or two and I was amazed. I didn’t even sit down and edit through mine until now!

Christmas 2010 was spent in Utah. That Sister lives there, and since she spent Christmas 2009 with our family, she was going to spend Christmas 2010 with her husband’s family. Instead of it being That Wife+That Husband+That 1+Those Parents in Washington while That Sister was in Utah, we figured we would bring the party to her!

It’s the first time Shay had seen T1 since he was 10 weeks old. What an enormous difference!

We all met up for lunch at Bella Citta, my very favorite place to eat in all of Utah.

While in Utah we took the time to go out and visit some families we don’t get to see very often. This is T1 with Mom H, she’s one half of the duo that took That Husband in when he came to BYU from Poland. He was funding everything on his own, and he never would have been able to come if this family hadn’t unofficially adopted him and treated him as one of their own!

While TH visited with the H family, I sent over to see the S family, which includes Trevor, the manmaid from my wedding! It’s been far too long since we’ve had the time to catch up, and his house was my own “home away from home” while I was at BYU. I ate dinner there every Sunday for several years.

On the morning of the 24th I went snowmobiling, Me, my sister, my cousin, and my dad.

It was so beautiful up there!

Unfortunately I’m kind of crummy at snowmobiling. Especially when I ride my dad’s machine, as it tends to throw me around like a rag doll. This happened to me a LOT and I had to wait for my dad to come tip it back over because I wasn’t strong enough to do it myself.

We ate our lunch sitting on top of the world. Or at least if felt like it!

I think this is my favorite picture :)

Hot dogs! They cook on the snowmobile as you ride. Isn’t that amazing?

On Christmas Eve we went to visit the O family, the family that sponsored TH as a foreign exchange student when he was a little bitty high schooler (with awful awful hair!). I loved being in there home, not only because they were so warm and inviting, but because I finally got to hear some juicy stories of what That Husband was like as a teenager. Apparently he has always been obsessed with bar soap. I won’t be sharing any embarassing stories though, because I don’t want to be messing with That Husband’s brand. :)

Love this.

T1 had a grand old time at their house. We don’t have many toys, and he went to town, sticking absolutely everything in his mouth to give it a taste.

He also made a friend!

Friend, what are you doing?

T1′s new friend thinks things over. How can she rectify the situation?

Awwww his first kiss!

T1′s new little friend knew from my reaction that she had done something that made me laugh.

Which of course made her want to go in for a second round. This time with some open-mouth action.

My parents rented a house for us to stay in, located just outside of Heber City, Utah. I think we’ll be spending Christmas this way in the future!

The house has a really deep sink where T1 took his baths. He looked so cute in there that I went a little picture crazy.

Right next to the house there were a few horses and cows. I thought T1 would enjoy heading out to say hello. We bought this outfit for him in Poland and he looks SOOOO cute in it.

Unfortunately, the minute we stepped outside he adopted this apathetic/despondent face and was determined not to let himself experience any other emotions. It was kind of boring actually.

It wasn’t a complete bust though. I L-O-V-E this picture of the two of us. It’s one of my favorites of the two of us together, ever!

These are my dads shallots. If you ever see a label like this on onions, shallots, or cippolinis, my dad grew them!

T1 says “Those are some delicious shallots you got there grandpa!”

We celebrated Christmas on the evening of the 25th, that way Shay could spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with her in-laws. With no kids whining in our ears about opening presents it was really nice and relaxed!

Shay, I just love this picture of you. Even if I am annoyed that your hair looks so perfect all the time.

That Husband and I wanted to incorporate some Polish traditions into our Christmas celebrating. So we waited to eat until the first star appeared in the sky.

This is not a Polish thing, this is a “mom and Shay both went shopping and didn’t keep track of what the other person bought” thing. We ended up having enough bottles of cider for each person at the table to have their very own! Ha!

Another Polish tradition is to have fish for Christmas dinner. They have only fish, and no other meat, but we had ham too.

I fed T1 bits and bobs off of my plate.

My mom took pictures of me while I had food in my mouth. Thus the “Seriously mom, what are you doing?” face.

After dinner, we headed down to the den where all of the presents were!

My dad read the Christmas story. (This is something they do in Poland but it’s something we’ve done in our family too!)

In Poland they have a wafer&wishes tradition. Each person has a wafer and they visit the other people in the room (individually or in couples, whatever you prefer), and you tell the other person what you wish will happen to them in the next year. Then you break off a piece of their wafer and eat it! It’s really beautiful and I plan to do it every year from now on.

Then it was time for present overload! My parents are too generous. Can you see that John Deere tractor? It’s both a soft toy that T1 can push around, and it opens up in to a book!

After T1 had a few turns at attempting to understand what-the-heck-was-happening it was time for the adults to go for it!

The Santa we brought my mom from Krakow.

I don’t have any pictures of the beginning of the ipad opening craziness because my brother-in-law was using the video function (someday maybe I’ll post that video, it involves a lot of me yelling and being kind of annoying though!), but this picture makes me laugh. First my dad opened up his ipad, a surprise from my mom. Then my sister and I opened ours at the same time. THEN my sister hands something to my mom, and my mom opens up the cover for an ipad (hence the confused look on her face, why would she need a cover for something she doesn’t have?)

We made her go on a scavenger hunt to find hers.

Whoa.

If you didn’t know, I keep my iphone in my bra, almost always. How can I possible carry my ipad with me if I can’t fit it next to my phone? We figured out a way to make it work.

Several games of Pinochle were played. I was kind of a downer, only played once, and wasn’t very cheerful while doing so. I just don’t get it!

We woke up the next day to load and loads of snow.

That night we did DIY family pictures. I lost the picture of That Sister with her husband or else I would show it here. They are so cute together!

Wow, our family looks so big already. Someday I’ll lose enough weight that we can add another little person to the mix!

Modeling flower hats that my grandma made for us.

On the 27th TH and I went on a date. A real live, honest to goodness date. I think I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve been out without T1! This is why people live next to their parents, so they can have free babysitting. Company X, are you sure you don’t want to relocate to Washington?!?!?!

We first went to Red Mango. The fro-yo was so disgusting that we threw it away after 3 bites. We went to the dollar theatre to see Red. And then we finished the night with a delicious dinner at Gloria’s Little Italy! I think maybe we’ll do this date thing a little more often from now on.

Wednesday morning we packed up and said goodbye to my family. It’s a good thing we live in the age of video chatting because I don’t think my parents could survive without it!

Christmas 2010 = WIN!

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