For Christmas, we rented a big cabin in the mountains outside of Cedar City, UT. The place worked out great for our extra large group. Getting to it on our checkin day was a bit hairy. There was a good storm blowing the and roads were super slippy.
As soon as we arrived, the G's begged to get their snow clothes on and get straight to it. The rest of our time there was sunny and snow perfect!
Because of the treacherous weather the day before, we opted not to drive back down to Cedar City for church the next day and instead got permission to have our own family sacrament meeting.
There was plenty to do in and around the cabin. Inside, the kids (of all ages) played games and puzzles and had art projects to work on. Outside, they found great little hills nearby to sled on.
Every night, we gathered ourselves together for a devotional and family prayer. Then the kiddos were straight to bed. It was magnificent! They wore each other out pretty well everyday and we were able to keep an early bedtime for them almost the whole week.
Grace was on the lookout for animal tracks everywhere she went.
Grandpa Randy joined us for a couple of days.
I never know what expression I'm going to get when I ask Grant to look at the camera. He makes me laugh so hard.
Ray and Sandy joined us the Monday before Christmas. Ray's brother and sister-in-law, Brad and Teresa, joined us for a night as well. They were super patient and positive with our crazy crew. We had a lot of fun with them.
One morning, we got to see Uncle Damien in action as he was making deliveries down the street from where we were staying. He let the kids climb around his truck and see how it is done.
Though we had fun little sledding hills right by the cabin, there was a GREAT bigger sledding hill a few minutes down the road. We spent a few afternoons climbing the hill and screaming down it. The pictures speak for themselves. I can't explain why sledding is so much fun. But there are always smiles everywhere I turn when we are on a snowy hill.
Go Grandma!
On Christmas Eve, Ethan and Megan planned fun games for the cousins and led a fantastic devotional about the Christmas story. We love reading the scriptures and singing together.
ALL 18 COUSINS!!
After devotional, everyone got to open a special present from Grandma Sandy and Papa Ray. Christmas Eve pjs! They even treated the moms and dads with new duds. That is a lot of pjs to organize!
Ready for Santa!
There are a few entry points to the main room of the cabin and we were concerned about certain little kids rushing out and disturbing Santa's work before moms and dads were awake. So the uncles designed a clever alarm of solo cups. Sure enough, the next morning someone tried unsuccessfully to slip through. Brilliant!
Christmas morning was about what you might expect with 7 families all together. It was a little crazy and a lot of fun. I love watching the kids give gifts to one another. They get so excited.
Gracie gave us a lesson on making rainbow loom bracelets with just our fingers.
We eventually got dressed (most of us anyway) and spent the rest of the afternoon playing with the other gift we got from Grandma and Grandpa. Papa Ray made a rocket launcher that hooks up to an air compressor for each family. It is designed for launching paper rockets. Everyone designed and redesigned their rockets and took turns seeing how high they would fly. Uncle Damien won the prize for being the best rocket engineer. We couldn't believe how high his rockets went soaring.
The next day we packed up and headed to St. George for Part II of our holiday.
