Christmas in St. George 2009!

I've been out of the blogging world for the last few months (three week long vacation over Christmas break and other things which we will get into later), but, I want to catch you up on the wonderful Christmas that we had!

We started our Christmas off pretty early this year. We knew we were going to be gone for most of the month of December, so, a week after Halloween, we set up our Christmas tree and decorations! Levi is two and a half now, and really got into all the Christmas festivities. He loved putting up all the decorations, listening to Christmas music, making yummy treats, and trying to sneak peaks under the wrapping paper to see what was there!

Levi loves to help with things, especially if it's helping Dad. He had a lot of fun helping us spread out the branches, and was quick to remind us if we weren't being careful enough with his Christmas tree!

One of my favorite Christmas stories is "The Polar Express", and lucky for me it has a train in it (which is Levi's FAVORITE thing at the moment), so we got to read this book a lot this year!

As tradition states (and Levi), the star goes on top!



Levi got to hang the last ornament (about 10 times, before he finally decided on a place to put it)!

Our finished product!

On our way to St. George we stopped by Newberry Springs for a few days to visit with Dan's dad and step-mom. Levi hadn't spent much time with these Grandparents, but he warmed up quickly and had a wonderful time! Especially after Grandpa took him to the store and bought him a little battery operated train.

Shortly after arriving in St. George we went out to Tuacahn to see the Live Nativity and all the pretty lights they put on. Watching the nativity was really beautiful and helped us all to remember the true meaning of Christmas. All Levi will tell you from the night, though, was that there was a train, and he got to ride it!

The train!

All the pretty lights, with the train in front (it's kinda hard to see).

Christmas morning at my parents! We had been telling Levi that on Christmas Eve after he goes to sleep that Santa would come and leave some new toys for him. He would get so excited when we would talk about it but, when Christmas morning came around he could have cared less and didn't seem to know what all the excitement was about, until we showed him that he could now open up his new toys!

Checking out the stockings! We had a pretty full house that morning, my whole family was there minus my second brother who is serving a mission in the West Indies right now.

When Grandpa wasn't at work, he and Levi were pretty inseparable!

One of the biggest struggles on Christmas morning was getting Levi to open up all his presents before opening up each individual box and playing with what was inside. The first thing he opened was a box of books. The top book had a picture of a train on it and that was it! He had all he wanted and didn't care about all the other un-opened gifts waiting for him. I had to half open a few gifts to show him there was still fun stuff to be had!

I think that smile says it all! We had a wonderful Christmas!!