a burton family christmas.

tanner and i could not find a way to make our christmas schedule make sense driving wise so after a month of trying to work it out in our brains and with my work, we gave up and decided to embrace the craziness.

it went like this:

leave LA friday night, Dec 21, to SLC

arrive at 5 AM

spend saturday and sunday, 22-23, in SLC

leave monday morning, christmas eve, for frei family cab

spend 24-25 at the cabin

leave wednesday, 26, for STG

spend 26-27 in STG

leave friday morning, 28, for SLC

spend 28-29 in SLC

leave sunday morning, 30, for LA

real life people. now that you know that story, let's continue.

we went to the nutcracker saturday afternoon with my family!! this is my favorite tradition and is so magical every single year. i swear it gets shorter every year as well. 

these sweet parents make it the best.

sorry we missed you for the pic, em! 

scariest art gardent ever but don't you fret - those poles aren't metal. they bend and that's why the kids are playing in them in the distance. they raced.

sunday was our burton family party complete with our traditional lamb dinner (yum), talent show (thanks aydia for letting us pawn our portion off to you!), music time, baby nativity and gift exchange.

the talent portion has changed quite a bit now that everyone's kids are old enough to do their talents for them so tanner and i feel lame trying to do anything each year because we're about 15 years older than the average participant. i love hearing the babies play their instruments though.

the picture on the right was the funniest talent. jane, elle and brianna prepared their own version of silent night but forgot to select a starting note so it was a bit in the minor key and had us all giggling throughout.

these boys and their headbands! owen sang for us.

the sweetest part of the night was mandi singing with grandpa burton. they had both sang the same duet in church that afternoon (can't think of the song name for the life of me at the moment) so we had them sing it together. it was a really sweet moment.

another sweet moment = kole bringing this book up to tanner and hopping on his lap to have him read it to him. i was just a little bit jeal.

everyone (even the babies!) looks really confused in this pic but they're just concentrating on who plays their special korean thing next. thing bells in primary but using wooden things instead.

ummm - cutest pic.

i love the baby nativity every year.

 doesn't get any better than this, people.

 katie and iuri went ouside the box for the sibling gift exchange themed games and got us some much needed tupperware which just so happened to be the hit present of the night.

all the nieces and nephews were playing on or with the box the rest of the night and picking out their favorite tupperware boxes. 

winners!

after our break down to STG (that's what all the people down south say, i've learned. not SG - though i do like that better.) we came back to SLC for a couple days. 

we lunched with attorneys from snell & wilmer (where tanner will be interning next summer) first thing upon our arrival then headed to the winkelmans to play with mj and bryce and the twins.

they located the waffle truck for us and took us on an excursion before our time with them was over and it was so delish. 

then we went home and played with gramma linda and avie and eliza while max slept. those girls went WILD on the air hockey machine downstairs and mom and i were dying laughing at them. it was quite enjoyable. annie and bk were on an anniversary date and came back around 10 and we stayed up chatting all together until about one. we loved every second of it.

 saturday afternoon brought the burton family christmas party which was a blast and so nice to see all those cousins and aunts and uncles. they had a yummy soup bar that i sampled through other people's bowls and a bunco tournament. 

later that night we went to dinner with some of the crew that would be heading over to savior of the world and it was so fun! it really makes me so excited to live in SLC and be able to hang out with these fun siblings and parents of mine all the time. we rode trax over to the conference center and annie told us to name our baby estelle and i thought it would be spelled astele. 

savior of the world was beautiful and a perfect way to end our christmas trip home. it brought the savior's life to light in a whole new way.

 we stayed up late watching bourne legacy (which is pretty much just one big chase scene) and woke up the next morning to head back to LA. 

sweet Lin packed these treat bags for us and labeled them while we were packing up all of our stuff and it just tugged at my heart. that woman is made of pure gold.

 oh and did i mention it snowed pretty much the w-h-o-l-e time?!!? it was the best christmas miracle.