Christmas Break

I realize that it is February and I'm just now writing about our Christmas break...so I'm a little behind!  Our original plan had been to stay in Pennsylvania for Christmas.  Nan was going to come visit before Christmas so we would be able to see family.  As Christmas got closer we were a little sad that we weren't going to be able to see family.  We spent Christmas in Oklahoma last year, which was fun so we knew we could do it again.  We had lots of fun plans, but as we listened to all of our friends plans to go home we started getting a little homesick too.  Brylee is at such a fun age and she just loves other kids and we really wanted her to play with cousins while she's at this age where she just adores other children.  So in December kind of last minute we found an awesome deal on tickets and decided to go home.

Nan was staying with us in Philadelphia so Sam dropped her off at the airport then came home and got Brylee and me and we headed off to the airport in Wilmington DE. This airport was tiny! They had free parking, what airport has free parking.  And it took us literally thirty seconds to walk from our car to the front door.  They only have one gate because they only have room for one plane at a time.  Security was a breeze which is nice with a toddler.  It took another thirty seconds to walk to the end of the airport.  Brylee had fun running around talking to strangers.  When it was time to load the plane we actually had to go outside and they pushed stairs up to the plane.  

Brylee is a busy busy girl. Yes, all toddlers are busy but Brylee takes it to whole other level.  For those of you that know Brylee you can imagine what an airplane ride with her would be like.  bry hated being contained on the airplane.  She just wanted to be free to explore and meet all the people.  We brought lots of activities.  She was entertained for about two minutes before we had to switch activities.  Needless to say we were excited when we finally arrived in Salt Lake.

Brylee was so excited to be in Salt Lake.  The next morning she woke up with some pretty cute bed hair.  It's kind of sad but this was only Brylee's second time seeing Grandpa Les.  They had lots of fun together.

The next day we went to Darlington to visit my dad and Brenda.  We surprised my dad, he didn't know we were coming home.  Every year they do a live nativity so it was fun to be there for that.  Brylee got to see three of her cousins from my side.  The kids had lots of fun together, especially when grandpa pulled them on the sled!

Brylee really loved her cousins, and for the most part they enjoyed her.  Jackson really loved her.  When we were getting ready to leave Jackson asked if Brylee could come home with him.  I told him that he would have to wake up with her at night and he said he would.  I guess he really believed me when I told him he could take Brylee with him.  Poor little gut he was so sad when he realized he wasn't taking Brylee home with him!

Dad pulled the kids on the sled.  Jackson and Bailey took turns holding Brylee on the sled.  As I'm typing this I realize how negliegent that sounds of us; trusting our baby with a five year old. Brylee had a blast until it was Bailey was holding her.  Bailey didn't realize that she actually had to hold on to Brylee.  She was just letting Brylee sit in front of her...and Bry may have tipped over into the snow. Fortunately the sled was being pulled really slow and we were there to save her!

  We spent a couple days at my dad's then we headed back to Salt Lake.  Brylee had so much fun meeting her Gardner cousins.  They had lots of fun together, and getting into mischief.

We were able to do some shopping and see the lights at temple square.  We packed Bry's snowsuit to see the lights, but when we got to the mall we realized we forgot her coat.  We didn't want her to have to walk around in her snowsuit at mall so we improvised with Sam's jacket.  It was so funny we had to take a couple pictures, our little grim reaper.

 

About ten minutes after this picture was taken Brylee actually fell asleep on grandpa's shoulders.  She must've been comfy in that snowsuit because she slept the entire time we were at temple square.

I was so excited for brylee to open presents this year.  She was only five weeks old last Christmas!  She still didn't quite understand but she had fun tearing the paper.  She wasn't super excited at the presents Sam and I gave her.  Her uncle Jon gave her some clothes and she got so excited when she unwrapped them!

 We had so much fun going home for Christmas. While we love having our adventure out here in Philadelphia we really miss our family.  It was so fun for Brylee to be able to see her family, I think that is the hardest thing about living so far away.