Christmas in Missouri

This year we decided to make the drive to Missouri to spend Christmas with our family. The drive there and the drive back were HORRIBLE but thankfully we made it safely. It took us 3 days to get to Missouri because of snow storms. A few pics from our 2 hotel stays.

Yesenia rode out with us and was “lucky” enough to get to share a bed with the girls, haha!

 

At a weird restaurant we ate at.

Hotel #2

Our first super fun family event was Kassie’s 18th birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese! I think she is awesome for choosing to have her party there. All of her little cousins loved it!

 

 

 

Eva hates Chuck-E-Cheese but I did discover something that she loved…the carousel!

 

 

We think Kassie is the greatest and we were so happy to be there for her party.

The next night we had a family dinner.

While back at grandma Baker’s house Eva found the perfect present to sit on while playing with the ornaments.

 

  

 

A couple days later the kids got busy decorating gingerbread houses.

While they were all hard at work, Eva’s g-tube wiggled it’s way out. YIKES!

Since she hadn’t used it in almost 2 months we decided to call Primary Children’s OR and get the “OK” to leave it out. My baby is officially g-tube free!!!

Finished gingerbread houses:

  

  

  

  

Somewhere between gingerbread houses and Christmas Eve, Julie and I had a girls day. We were laughing so hard at our attempts at a selfie.

 

Christmas Eve night was wild! I didn’t take many pictures but we ate a lot of good food, enjoyed a lot of good company and opened lots of good presents.

Becca did my hair.

Rich realized he must be shrinking while talking to his nephew, Brhett.

We were able to get Eva to play baby Jesus and Daisy to play an angel in the nativity by giving them a sucker.

Fun was had by all.

The next day we headed to Springfield to spend a very short and rushed Christmas Day with my family. My sister-in-law Amy had about an hour before she had to head out to Arizona and my nephew, Josiah, who has leukemia was going on 3 days in the hospital because of a fever. Not the ideal Christmas and yet it was because I got to see my family and all of the cousins (except Josiah) got to play together. Of course, everything was so rushed and crazy I didn’t take any pictures. Sad.

I went to the hospital to hang out with Josiah and give him his present. He loved his enderman.

He’s such a professional patient he even scans his own bracelet when they come in to give him his meds.

This super sweet girl that had been through treatment with Josiah last year came and visited him and then built a train track with him.

The next day we woke up to sick kiddos all over the place. No bueno.

Regardless of sick kids, the drive back to Utah had to be made. I think Eva must have been jealous that everybody else was getting attention because they were sick so she pulled her trach out. Not cool Eva.

 

Didn’t she know that a screaming kid with a fever (Arabella) and the two day drive where we feared for our lives was enough?

Seriously, we were so scared! We vowed never to make the drive to Missouri during the winter EVER again! Well, at least not from Utah. What a fun time the kids all had with their cousins though. I realized, looking through my pictures, that I didn’t have a ton of pictures of the older kids because they were always off running around playing with their cousins. Makes me happy. We love our families and always love spending time with them. Grateful we could make it this year.