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Christmas

Our family Christmas Eve

It's unbelievably fun to do Christmas for two girls. I'm sure that of all of us, I'm the one who had the most fun this year! Ava's starting to grasp the concept of Santa, so I think it was pretty fun for her, but I know that next year she'll be really excited! Stockings were particularly fun for me and now she's starting to appreciate her stocking stuffers. It take a few months, apparently, to be able to explore all the stuff and figure out that it's cool. Here are a few of my favorite Christmas pics to be followed up by, yep you guessed it, another slide show.

First look at what Santa brought

Happy about her new headband!


How much is too much? Wearing all her new "Rella" jewelry at once.


I guess Elsa likes her new toy from Santa!

The Cabin

Amy, Eric, Tom, Todd, Julie, Nancy, Jared, Jamie, Steve

Okay, so I've only been twice, but New Years Eve at the Smith's cabin is one of my favorite traditions. Unfortunately, we don't get to do it next year, so the memories from this year will have to tie me over for two years!

We had such a blast this year. We had some wicked games of dominoes, where I got to know some of my family members really, really well! I had profound conversations that probably would've changed my life if Jamie didn't keep interrupting all the time. :-) Just kidding J! We ate every delicious and tempting food you can think of *shout out to Tom's quesedilla concoctions* and drank an unprecedented amount of Steven's Hot Cocoa.

Ava had a great time playing with her cousins and probably watched Cinderella 2 nine hundred times! Poor Elsa was a sicky and didn't get to come, but she had some good bonding time with G&G Johnson and company. Thanks, you guys, for getting her feeling better.

The highlight of the cabin for me without question, though, is the siblings and spouses snowmobile ride. We were sorry to be missing two of our numbers this year... Marianne and Sally. Mare was home making moolah and Sally thought Tom would kill her.

Truly, a priceless moment in Dunn Family History was watching Jared walk out in his borrowed one-piece snowsuit with jazzy neon green and purple accents. And his olive green beanie did just the trick to top it all off!

This year the ride was ridiculously cold! I'll never forget on the way back to the cabin when Todd lifted his goggles and the tip of his nose was bright white! Nor will I forget the ice crystals clinging to Eric's face or Jamie's selfless act of sacrificing her goggles to Eric for the ride back. She was brave enough to sit on the back of Steve's mobile with her eyes closed. But in the end, this snowmobile ride has the power to heal hearts. Even those that have been broken by grated swiss cheese and the wrong kind of baguettes!

So the point of this post is just to tell my family how much I love them and how much I love to spend time with them. I don't get to do it nearly enough, so when I do, I like to do it in close quarters where I couldn't turn around without bumping into one of them. Thanks for a great trip guys!

The Girls and their Boy Friends

Here are some pictures of the girls and their current boy friends.

Ava loves to have her friend Davis come to play. They generally like to play the same things. They both like rocks, they both like to yell, "Daddy!" out the window, and they both like to play with this little table.

Elsa was pretty happy to have Danny Richards come from New York to play for one night. It's a long-distance friendship, but absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Ava's Hair

I don't know why periodically I feel like I need to do a post on Ava's hair. I guess it's because I wake up each morning glad to see that it's still as curly and beautiful as ever. Yesterday I was fixing it and couldn't help stopping to take pictures of the sweetest white-girl afro ever. She's amazing!

Ode to Charlie

If this isn't the best Santa's lap picture.....

What are the odds he's on the nice list? Oh, Charles Warren Tate, what would we do without you?!

Elsa's Blessing

We blessed Elsa Beth on December 9th at my parents house in Bountiful, UT. We had driven from Cedar City, UT to Salt Lake that same morning, so it was a very busy day. Jared gave her a wonderful blessing, of course! We were grateful to have our family members there to share such a sacred event with us, and we were grateful to have priesthood-holders that we love so much be in the circle to support Elsa. It meant a lot to us and I'm sure it will mean a lot to her some day! Here are some pictures from her big day...

Visiting with Santa

We had such a fun time sitting on Santa's lap this year! (Well, some of us did.) We went to the most incredible outdoor mall in LA, The Grove, to tell the man in red about our Christmas wishes. The atmosphere was awesome!

It was about 60 degrees at 7:00 pm, so just cool enough for a cute coat, but not cold enough to be even slightly uncomfortable. The line wasn't too bad, which was the first thing to go right in this experience.

We had been practicing so that Ava would know what to do when she got to Santa. We were saying, "Now Ava, when Santa says, 'What do you want for Christmas little girl?' What do you say?" Same response each time... "Pink Shoes." So we get to Santa and we plop both girls on his lap and what does Ava do? Puts on the grumpiest, most sour face you've ever seen and just sits there. Of course, it would've helped if Santa would've actually asked the question. I kept trying to prompt him, but he just sat there too. Elsa had a great time, as always. As long as she's not hungry, she's game for any weird activity. The bottom line is, it's a miracle that Ava got anything from Santa this year!

To finish off a really fun evening, we watched the fountain show choreographed to Harry Connick sining "Let It Snow" as snow machines blew snow off the roofs of the buildings.

So Many Updates, So Little Time!

Here we are again at the end of another long day trying to update the ol' Johnson Blog. I seriously don't know how all my fabulous friends manage to keep their blogs totally up to date. Not only that, but they manage to say something interesting or whitty each time. I'm bias, but I figure that my girls are my saving grace. They're cute enough to keep my blog interesting all by themselves. So, I just post pictures of them and let the pics do the talking. I'm too dang tired to be whitty!