Holidays Part 2

 For Christmas, we drove to Salt Lake to spend it with my parents.  Even though we've said many times that we never want to make that drive in the winter again, the trip was well worth it, and the roads were even clear for us most of the way. We were nervous about the long trip with Collin, but he did a lot better than we expected. When he was awake, he was most entertained by a box of Mike & Ikes.  He loved the sound when I shook them and stared for a long time. He slept most of the way, then surprisingly slept well that night also! He is the best baby.

He got another box in his stocking for the ride home.

Reuben and Katie were in Salt Lake and Liz came for a couple of days with her kids. The day after we arrived, we went to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Christmas concert to see my dad sing, along with David Archuleta. We really enjoyed it! Dane and Bridget Smith came along and it was great to catch up with them, as always.

After the concert

Collin and Grandpa after the concert

We went back to Temple Square the next night with my family to look at the light displays. Collin loved looking at the lights! (Although he definitely got tired of being in that infant carrier for so long).

I like this picture with the temple in the background

Mesmerized by the lights

We also went to Thanksgiving Point to look at the lights display, took some walks, did some shopping, lots of relaxing, and definitely lots of eating Christmas treats (my mom's sugar cookies are the best in the world, and I've been obsessed with shrimp ever since my dad grilled us some). It was really good to spend Christmas with my family. Collin got some toys that he is starting to show interest in. Our gift to ourselves was a camcorder, and we love it. I always love watching home videos and we decided it was important to make our own.

Cute in his 1st Christmas outfit

We got dressed up and took some family pictures while we were there. We were intending to send out delayed Christmas cards with pictures, but I guess that just didn't happen. Maybe next year :) Collin was adorable in his little fancy outfit.

He is such a happy, smiley boy!

     While we were there, my dad made Collin laugh hard for the first time! He'd had really short beginnings of laughs before, but his grandpa just cracked him up.
     Another exciting thing was that Collin's eye suddenly got better. He'd had a blocked tear duct in his left eye, so ever since he was 3 weeks old, it was constantly gunky and watery. We had to clean his eye out and massage his duct several times a day. (If you look at the picture above, you can see gunk underneath). As soon as we got to Salt Lake, it got much worse, we assumed because his eyes watered more in the dry climate (maybe). Then, the day he turned 3 months old, he woke up with no gunk, and there hasn't been any since! We're pretty happy about that.
     We made it back to Portland before New Year's. We went to our ward party, which ended at 8, and barely made it to midnight to watch the ball drop.
     Since then, Rob has started his 2nd quarter of school. It's nice to get back into a good routine. We recently got new church callings- Rob teaches Sunday School for 12-13 year olds, and I am an Activity Days leader with the 8-11 year old girls. We're excited for 2011!