christmas in california

After celebrating some of our Christmas on Christmas Eve morning, we flew down to California to visit Laura's side of the family.

Brooklyn and Evan weren't the only ones with matching jammies!

Jammie buddies!

Perry came over Christmas morning -- Evan loved having lots of attention!

Must have taken Santa a while to fill all those stockings!

Someone got a little book in her stocking.

Emily got a new exercise ball -- Evan was definitely excited about that.

Jon and Lindsey were in town as well -- it was fun being with them!

Brooklyn enjoyed helping Grandpa open presents...

...and Lindsey...

...and Emily...

...and Grandma...

...and David...

...and Perry...

...and sometimes she opened her own presents too -- Space Needle Legos!

Evan liked hanging out with Jon and Lindsey...

...and Grandma and Grandpa.

Austin wanted Star Wars Legos for Christmas -- he says he's stocking up for the kids but we really know it's his inner nine- or ten-year-old wishing he'd had an A-wing set 20 years ago!

Christmas dinner was super tasty -- ham, potatoes, stuffing, homemade rolls, et cetera -- YUM.

David is pretty happy to finally have a nephew around!

Mary and Chase and their girls came down after Christmas -- we finally got to meet their little girl Grace!

Austin immediately got smiles out of her.

We thought we'd take a quick little family photo -- it was great to have all of Laura's family together.

Grandkids!

Evan and Aunt Lindsey -- aw!

The girls were really into playing school with the fold-up desks.

Won't be long before that's an ACT bubble sheet! Scary.

We took some impromptu family photos after church on Sunday. We thought this one turned out rather nice.

Cousins!

Austin got Laura's family (and himself) a guitar for Christmas.

Everyone was excited to give it a try!

David loves being silly with the kids. He is great at getting giggles and laughs.

Evan was pretty fascinated with Grandpa -- super cute.

Christmas was a breakthrough in terms of getting Evan to eat -- we'd had a hard time getting him to eat baby food in the few weeks before, but Grandma had the magic touch!

One of the days we went to the California Science Center. There was lots of cool stuff, but the main reason we went was to see...

...a space shuttle!

This was a dream come true for Austin -- who had a space shuttle birthday cake one year, space shuttle books, space shuttle toys of all sizes, space shuttle Legos, and probably space shuttle underwear.

The kids were pretty excited about it too.

It was pretty awesome. Short of actually watching a shuttle launch, this was the next best thing.

There was an aquarium at the science center...

...which Brooklyn is always a big fan of.

The science center is right next door to the LA Coliseum, where the 1984 Olympics were held and where USC plays college football. It was cool to see from the outside, and Austin thought it would be fun to visit again if BYU ever plays there.

It was a fun day -- and fun days are tiring!

Uncle David was super sweet with his little nieces!

We had a great time visiting Laura's family and a had great Christmas! We are excited to see them again this summer.