Part of the Jarvis Clan

A few of the cousins after Thanksgiving dinner

The best part of visiting Utah is being with family. The weather during our last trip was a big disappointment and, if it had not been for our great family, I would've been ready to leave after just a couple of days. Since I never posted the few pictures I took during our Thanksgiving trip, I will post those as well. No worries, there are not very many. I am generally a bad picture-taker while in Utah. There is just too much fun stuff going on... Ok. Let's face it, I am just bad at taking pictures in general. Oh well. 


The boys love 'helping' Grandpa in the yard, especially when it involves leaves and a cart. Anybody want a ride?

We do! We do! 





Getting dumped...





Unfortunately, only 2 of Karl's siblings are living in Utah right now. Fortunately, both of them are in Provo and there are still plenty (12) of cousins to play with. The closest in age to Noah and Max are the triplets: Emmy, Zoe, and Callie:

We love spending time with cousin Spencer who can play great songs on his guitar and loves to come up with his own songs. The boys think it's great!

He also makes an excellent punching bag...

... and story teller. Thank you, Spencer, for spending time with us!

Back home in Flagstaff our Christmas tree looks like this:

We have had our lovely Norfolk Pine for years now and Karl and I think it's a great idea: cheap, small, environmentally friendly. The boys, however, wanted a 'real' Christmas tree this year. Luckily, when we came to Grandma and Grandpa's house, they had a beautiful large lovely-smelling fir tree in the music room ready to be decorated by the boys. They went straight to work:



One of my favorite traditions is singing Christmas (and other) songs by the tree with Grandpa on the guitar and/or Grandma on the piano.



Christmas was wonderful. The boys slept until 7:30, we opened a couple of presents, had breakfast, went to church, opened more presents, built and played, and had a very nice family dinner at Aunt Lena's house. We are very blessed!

Building the new Playmobil fire station:

Max got tired of building and decided to test out the new fire boat

I love my boys!