Idaho Pre-Christmas

Matthew, Ellie, Rachel, and I headed to Idaho on Dec 14 for my youngest sister's wedding. I just have to say that I love Allegiant....$40 flights from Oakland straight into Idaho Falls...you just can't beat that! It really is such a blessing. We landed in the evening, dropped the kids off at my parents' house, and then my mom, Rachel, and I went to Mongolian Grill (one of our favorites!) for some dinner. Later that evening, most of our family met up at Orange Leaf (another favorite) for some frozen yogurt and to celebrate Abby's last night before she was married.

 The next day was wedding day! Abby and Greg had a beautiful ceremony, and a simple but gorgeous reception. We are excited to have Greg join our family!

After the wedding, we had a really low key week. Everyone who had come for the wedding went home and we still had a week before Jon and Emma finished work and school and could join us. 

We were lucky enough to arrive in Idaho to snow falling (apparently the first snow in a long time). I figure if it's going to be cold, it might as well be snowing.  :)  It snowed the first 3 days we were there and Matthew was thrilled. He spent most of his days jumping on the snow covered trampoline and attempting to make snowballs and build snowmen. He was in little boy heaven! Ellie takes after her mom and can't stand being out in the cold....thank goodness! We had a lot more fun staying nice and warm inside while we watched Matthew play. 

 

Two of my nephews had birthday the first week we were there. We went to Leo's Pizza to celebrate Jake's birthday one night. It just happened to be the night Santa came and raffled off a ton of gifts for the kids there.

Ellie LOVED Santa. She went and saw him several times, and made off with more candy canes than she should have in the process.  :)

 Ellie ended up winning this 4+ foot tall sock monkey...lol....We thought it was hilarious....what do you do with a sock monkey this big???  Ellie was terrified of it the first night but eventually warmed up to him. Max has since taken up residence in her crib and she loves using him as a pillow.

:)

 Max is also very mischievous...Matthew found him tucked into his bed one night.

 

Homemade thin mints....mmmm....my mom made these for Abby's reception, and then we made more the next week...even though we probably shouldn't have. They are so good and I ate way too many! It was a fun night though....staying up a little too late, making cookies and watching Miracle on 34th Street with my mom.

 

The next few days were filled with shopping, visiting, playing with Legos, Christmas-decorating, and trying to stay warm.  :)  The snow stopped Monday and then it was just plain cold! By Thursday Matthew was going crazy from being inside all day, so we called up some friends and went to iJump for some indoor trampoline fun. It was the perfect way to spend the afternoon.

Jon was planning on coming on Saturday, but there was supposed to be a lot of snow in the mountains that day, so he left Friday instead. He left really early and completely surprised us when he got to my parents house in the afternoon. It didn't really feel like Christmas until we were all together as a family again. It was a happy day!

The next day my parents watched the kids so Jon and I could go on a date. We've been wanting to go to the Rexburg Temple, so we made that our first stop. What a gorgeous temple! And it was the perfect way to start our day. After the temple we went to Olive Garden for some lunch and then did a little last minute shopping for the kids. It was a perfect date.

Our next to do was decorating gingerbread houses. Emma and Matthew each decorated a side of the roof. I was really impressed with how well they each did. The rest of the house was pretty neglected.  :)  Turned out cute though and they had fun.

 

Christmas church outfits

 

 

Somehow this is the only picture I got of either of my parents. Makes me so sad. Next time we're together I'm going to remedy that!  

The kids all LOVED reading stories with Grandma and Grandpa

On Christmas Eve we woke up to snow! The timing couldn't have been more perfect.

The kids headed out to play first thing in the morning.

 That afternoon Jon and I took the kids to iJump (yes again!). It was a blast. We decided we should go to iJump every Christmas Eve.  :) 

We came home and got ready for Christmas Eve dinner. My sister-in-law, Kaci, her boys, and her parents joined us all for dinner. Then we did the traditional gifts to Christ, and reading Luke 2 and a Christmas story. Then it was off to bed so Santa could come.

Rachel's Visit (And MORE family pics!)

We were lucky enough to have my sister Rachel visit us for 3 days in December. We were all headed to Idaho Falls for Abby's wedding, so she was able to make our house a stop on her way there. It's been a long time since we've had visitors (the last time was when Ellie was born!), so it was SO fun to have her here. We love visitors!

We picked her up from the airport in the morning and headed straight into the city for a full day of fun. There was a lot of rain in the forecast and we worried that it would ruin all of our plans. But thankfully the skies dumped all the rain first thing in the morning, and then the clouds parted and left us with a sunny (but chilly) day. What a blessing!

Our first stop was Coit Tower for some family pictures. We had also hoped to explore a little, since none of us have ever been there, but we were running really behind and didn't have much time. I definitely want to go back sometime....there are some gorgeous views!

Most of the pictures in this post are courtesy of Rachel :)
 

 

 

Ellie was cold and tired and wanted nothing to do with pictures! I do love this one though.

 

 

 

 

 

From the tower, we rushed to get lunch at Tony's Pizza, which my friend Erica had highly recommended. It was tasty!

 

When planning out our day we thought we would have tons of time to explore, but life happened and we barely had time to eat our lunch as we walked/ran to the Pier to go to Alcatraz. This was a highlight for us...somewhere we've always wanted to go so I'm glad we finally made it happen. 

On the boat (hello sea sickness!)

 

For a deserted prison island, it really is a beautiful place!  :)

 

Ellie didn't have any patience for the tour. She kept grabbing my headphones and wanted to get down and run. Matthew was interested for awhile and then lost interest and wanted to go play outside. Emma was really into it. She just got really impatient with us when we wanted to stop and take pictures. She didn't realize you could pause the audio tour and was really worried about getting behind.  :)  Lesson learned:  Don't take kids to Alcatraz. I really want to go back now so I can actually hear the recording and take time to see everything.

We rushed through the tour and went outside to explore and Ellie finally gave in and went to sleep!

There was a beautiful rainbow that ended right over the city.

We think Matthew looks like Alfalfa from The Little Rascals here.  Anyone else see it?

See the feather that Matthew's holding? We didn't realize he even had it until we went to get back on the boat and an employee told us it was illegal to take bird feathers and we could get in a lot of trouble. Haha....little trouble maker already!

I love this city!

It was dinnertime when we got back from our tour so we headed over to Pier 39 to try out Boudin's Bakery. Despite the fact that we've lived here 5 years we have never been. It was yummy!

 

 

The next morning, I sent the oldest two kids off to school and preschool, and took Ellie to a friend's house so Rachel and I could go to the temple. Sadly, I think this was the ONLY picture we got of the two of us!

 Thanks to great friends who offered to keep the kids as long as we needed, we were also able to squeeze in lunch at The Cheesecake Factory and a quick shopping trip at Trader Joes. It was so fun to spend time, just the two of us. It's been way too long!

On Friday we finished our packing, visited Dreamworks and had lunch with Jon, and then it was off to the airport. A whirlwind visit, but I'm so glad she came!

Christmas Lights

We love going to see the lights on Eucalyptus Ave in San Carlos. Two blocks of houses completely decked out! There are always so many fun displays and it seems like it's different every year (or maybe I have just have a really bad memory!) Either way, it's a fun tradition for our family.

 

 

Family Pictures and Fentons

At the beginning of December, my talented friend Angelica agreed to take pictures for the whole Farrell family. She did an awesome job!

After pictures were taken, the whole family went to Fenton's for dinner. And of course, a trip to Fenton's wouldn't be complete without a huge ice cream treat!