Footed pajamas size 2XX = full proof birth control.

We spent the week before Christmas up North with family.
Here is the Hadley half of the trip:
After leaving SGU a bit late (we planned on 9 AM and left @ 3 PM), we arrived just in time to have to be towed up the mountain to Maria's house. Blast the Honda. We have a wusy car... but when we have to get towed up snow-clad roads in Ogden we just keep reminding ourselves that the Honda is paid off, brand new, gets good gas mileage, and we live in SGU where we don't have to worry about TOTALLY wretched snow-clad roads. Plus we don't live on a mountain. When that doesn't work (Quinn- "This is enough to make me want to go into debt to buy an SUV the minute we get home!"), I just start saying Dave Ramsey Dave Ramsey over and over again while I smash my elbows into the door trying to change Annie's diaper in a puny back seat. Annie slept the whole way until Provo and then I kept her happy until SLC where we picked up Q's mom for an amazing late dinner at Setebellos. We barely beat the Archiletta crowd.

There are many people who have a Smith & Edward's obsession. I am NOT one of them. I think this store is the hick capitol this side of the Mississippi- but Q thinks it's like walking into paradise so... here we are at Smith & Eddies. His fam arranged a holiday scavenger hunt. We would have won if we hadn't run into Hailey Brown and had a lovely conversation.

I can't tell if Meree really likes Smith & Eddies or she's just pretending in order to keep the favorite daughter-in-law slot. She'd probably take the cake in that department either way.

All jesting aside, we had fun, plus-a company that sells big silver gun boxes for the back of big trucks was giving away cookies they were grilling in the home works department. That right there is Smith & Eddies in a nut shell. Did you know Annie pulls something-anything-over her head when she naps (just like Grandma Cindy)? Silly Annie.

Then- we had a family party at Nicole's house.

Annie wore her I Love Santa outfit from my awesome teacher friend (Miss Nesmith).

Porter is channeling Clark Gable or the like in this debonaire photo!

Time for Presents- which was a bit of chaos now that there are so many kids.

Apparently there was a white elephant gift exchange in addition to the regular gift exchange.
As usual, I didn't find out about this small fact until we were 1 hour out of Ogden.
Someone (and I'm not saying who) forgot to pass on this little detail so I had to forfeit two of my precious IKEA chocolate bars for the game.

These were two big hits from the white elephant exchange.
A Hadley family member ACTUALLY wore these {not as a joke} within the last 10 years!

There's a reason why it's difficult for grown men to find footed pajamas. For better or for worse, QM made these. Someone said it was the equivalent counter-part turn off for Mormon women's underwear. Emma gave Annie these snazzy and completely steal-the-show holiday leg warmers! Annie wore them every day to Christmas.

Christmas Sunday involved a completely adorable mom and Annie in black velvet dresses.

Maria's house is like the Taj Mahal. There is a room for everyone.
Annie loved bouncing around on the feather-bed clad air mattress in ours.

This is when she started grabbing her feet and playing with them. She is well onto sucking toes now.

...and that was our Holiday vacation to Ogden.

Family Pictures 2010

Remember the story of Q and last year's Christmas photo op? Well, it's a great deal easier getting him to go for family photo shoots now that we have Annie. P.S. Annie is wearing (you guessed it) one of my dresses, 30 years later!

The requirements for family photo locales are many and long when you have a baby and a Quinn to cater too. Basically, it had to be close, right by a drivable road, and somewhere Q could complain about (he HATES getting family pictures -though I don't know why- considering how handsome he is, he should want to get them every day). This place fit the bill and with a little photo shopping of houses in the background, we managed in a field of weeds. I totally FORGOT to set the camera out of manual (drat), and tie Annie's bow, and point the camera/Megan (our traditional photographer stand-in) in the direction that didn't have houses in the background... ug. It's a miracle we got one that worked at all.
Can you guess which photos were chosen?

Good thing we've trained our baby to smile for the camera (no joke).

...And the winners are:

Oh My Gosh we look SO different from last year!

Don't let anyone ever tell you there's no difference between 29 and 30.
I never photo shopped wrinkles or sun spots at 29!!!