Beautiful Disaster

We were welcomed home to Illinois by a huge ice storm! Everything was covered in ice. It really is beautiful to see every branch of a tree covered in ice. Unfortunately, those ice covered branches get very heavy and tend to break off and knock over power lines, causing the city to lose power, which leads to our sump pump to stop working, and ends up with our basement flooding :(

I was trying to recover from our vacation today by tackling loads of laundry. When our power went out I knew that my plans for the day had been ruined, so I laid down by the fire to catch up on some z's...which a mother should never do as something bad always happens! A few minutes after laying down Dax and Ellie come running up the stairs from the basement yelling that there is a pond in our basement!!! I ran downstairs to find squishy carpet and ventured father in to the corner where the sump pump is to become ankle deep in water. I went next door to our neighbor Melody, who luckily was smart enough to install a full house generator after the tornado. She helped me round up extension cords and we plugged the generator into her house. Ben was able to come home from work early and he sucked up the water and got some guys from the ward to help him lift the carpet up to dry. The power didn't come back on until the middle of the night so the kids and I had a campout by the fireplace while Ben and the guys worked on the basement.

It was a crazy day!! 

Christmas Utah Style

We had a crazy busy and fun filled Christmas week in Utah!

Saturday, Dec 19th we took off in our car to the St. Louis airport to fly to Utah. It was kind of crazy taking 6 people and twice that many bags through the airport, but the kids were pretty awesome and we had a good flight :)

 Sunday, Dec 20th Ben was able to give Brynlee a name and a blessing. We had most of our family there. It was truly a little taste of heaven on earth!

 We got dumped on that night and woke up to a winter wonderland. I love the snow filled trees! It was a beautiful setting for all of our Christmas festivities.

 We spent the first few days playing with Gma and Gpa Coombs and celebrated Christmas Eve early with the Coombs fam on Dec 22nd so that everyone could be there (Nate and fam were leaving out of town). We had a fabulous dinner followed by a talent show put on by the super talented Coombs family. Cole even had a little song prepared, and Ellie was able to do a cute little duet with Grandma :) 

 

Following the talent show and sing along the grandkids put on the Nativity. Ellie was ecstatic to be Mary with Hudson playing Baby Jesus, Dax was a shepherd and Cole a wiseman.

 Last of all the cousins traded gifts and the grandkids opened their Christmas jammies from Grandma!

Dec 24th we celebrated Christmas Eve with the Green family. It's always a crazy fun time with all of us in one house ;) I absolutely love it!! We did another Nativity with the Green family, and Ellie got to be Mary once again. This time Baby B got to be the star role of Baby Jesus :) Dax was a sheep, haha, and as always, Cole was a wiseman.

 Next up was another awesome talent show. There were a lot of musical numbers...Ellie even got Aunt Marli to sing with her :) 

 And Bronson showed his weird broom trick, which everyone felt the need to try after, haha. It was very entertaining ;)

 Grandpa completed the talent show with his traditional storybook reading. As always, the kids were captivated by his reading :) 

 Next was cousin gift time. Brynlee was lucky to have her cousins dote on her all night, and Lissy helped her open her adorable present from Brittyn ;)

We ended the night by playing games until super late and barely making it to bed before Santa came ;)

We slept over at the Edgmon's Christmas Eve, so we were there Christmas morning. Luckily Santa found us! Cole was thrilled to find Santa left him his own mini drone, Ellie was ecstatic to find Descendant dolls, and Dax was pleased as punch to find Chase from Paw Patrol!

 GG and Grandpa also gave pretty awesome gifts that totally surprised the kids. Cole got his own Kindle and Ellie and Dax got their own smart watches! It was a very exciting Christmas morning!

 Christmas afternoon we headed back over to Grandma and Grandpa Coombs' house to open even  more gifts.  Ellie got Strawberry Shortcake dolls and accessories she has been wanting for months, Dax got a remote control race car for his gogo tracks, and Cole got a huge Lego set with a boat that actually floats! We sure were spoiled this year!!

Saturday, Dec 26th we met up with the Green family for another fun adventure. We went to Get Air and got some good cousin time in as we jumped on the tramps, flipped into the foam pits, climbed the ropes, played some knockerball, and Ben and Brynlee even got in a nap ;) Afterward we went to a drive through light show, but I didn't get any pics of that...oops!

 We had a super fun week surrounded by our family...but it was time to say goodbye to these beautiful mountains and the family we love and head back to real life in Illinois :( Can't wait to come visit again!!