Merry Christmas 2014!

We had a lovely Christmas!

Matt had time off, we were all together!

Sarah was here for the fun too.

It dumped and dumped snow all night, which made for a perfect Christmas morning!

 The kids never get pop-tarts, so they were so excited to get them first

thing in the morning. Later that morning my parents ventured out

through the snow to visit us and have a late breakfast with us.

We had orange rolls from Kneaders, Strawberry French Toast (with Kneaders

Cinnamon bread) and an egg casserole. It was all so easy and SO SO good!

 Every year we try to get a pic of the boys in front of their presents...and it 

never really works out. 

Little James was so confused about this whole Christmas thing.

 Dev really wanted a Santa costume for Christmas this year.

And he need to just test out his slippers, funny kid.

 Yes, we were all quite spoiled this year. But this year the boys really seemed

to enjoy and appreciate all their gifts. Last year it was like "okay, where's my next

present?" This time they actually took the time to play with their things before

moving onto the next. It was a fun day!

The aftermath.

Why does it take a couple days to clean up the Christmas presents?

 James is such a babe. 

He kept says "da da!" (ta-da!)

And our Christmas card this year.
It was probably my favorite yet.

Matt's very talented cousin designed it for us.

Front 

Back

We really did have a fantastic 2014!
We've been so so blessed.

There's lots to look forward to in 2015.

Merry Christmas 

and a Happy New Year!!

Christmas Eve and the Great Grandparents

I love my grandparents!

Being the youngest of the youngest (my dad's the youngest in his fam of 7), I am not very close to any of my cousins or aunts/uncles on the Johnson side and my dads parents died long before I was born. So sadly, I never got the chance to meet them in this life. 

Thankfully I've been blessed with some amazing grandparents though, my mom's parents.

I'm so happy to be back to Utah and to be able to see them on a more regular basis. As I 

grew up I swore they never aged! It's like they've been the same forever. But of course they

 are aging, they

are in their mid-eighties and won't be around forever. I hope though, for many more years so I can 

see them even more and my children can get to know them. I'm thankful they lasted our long 

eight years while we were in Ohio. :)

On Christmas Eve day, we spent a couple hours visiting them. My sister, Mandy and her crew came along too. Before I left I thought to grab my camera so I could take photos of my grandma's many

Christmas decorations, the way I remembered them as a child.

In my grandma's more formal living room she has lots of fun decorations with lights and music, the little boys just loved it! And of course she loves to share it with them.

I'm sure glad that I thought to take my camera with me that day. Sadly about a week later, their sweet dog (and I mean that. I am NOT a dog person, but we really did love Sammy). Sammy unexpectedly passed away. It was so hard on them and so sad. They sure loved that pup and so did all the kids.

I took lots of photos of Sammy and printed them and gave them to my grandma and she just loved it!

She laughed, she cried, she just loved the photos!

James has always loved dogs from a distance. He just wasn't too sure about Sammy though.

My grandpa had these fun walkie-talkies and he let the kids play with them. They have a big yard and the kids ran wild. Not to mention it was like 50-60 degrees that day too!

These photos remind me so much of photos of me running around and playing in their yard when I was Luke's age. I can hardly believe I'm watching my own kids do it too. It sure is a sweet feeling.

My grandpa had been gone doing some last minute shopping, as most men do on Christmas Eve. :)

I just love his hat. He's such a handsome dude.

We'll miss you Sammy boy!