cmas morning

 christmas morning with little kidlets is one of the best things on earth. it just gets better every year. & austin wins best father of the year award for calming his guilt-ridden wife just days before cmas & brainstorming a cheap way for the girls to enjoy their big play kitchen (that i researched & bought on über sale 4 months ago). with celebrating in idaho & then the impending january move across the country it really didn't make sense to set the thing up for a week & a half only to hope it packed & travelled safely to colorado. so we opted to keep it in the factory packaging & the chief called 8 places in IF before finding a blue print company that let us print a life-size butcher paper poster of the kitchen. for a buck. okay $1.47 but seriously?! who saves christmas for $1.47?! the beans kind of ignored it until the day after christmas but i was so glad we did it.

after church we couldn't have been more excited to get phone calls from both our brother missionaries. as luck would have it, michael started skyping a solid 10 minutes after we got on the phone with zach in argentina so stone & i ran back & forth as best as we could trying to be engaged in both calls. it was not ideal but we love our baby bros & it was awesome to chat with them!

hope all had a lovely holiday!!!

once home we celebrated a low key new year's here & came home & the husby & i stayed up late talking about the year ahead of us & discussing all that we have to be grateful for. :)

cmas eve

i just might like christmas eve better than the actual day. it's so full of anticipation & excitement & you can easily take a time out from the chaos to focus on the real reason for the season. love love love.

the mini hill nativity:

 happiest angel EVER! & if that perfect little trio doesn't just about kill you...

then carefully carrying a plate of cookies & carrots over for santa & the reindeer will do you in. i mean can you see she is just ready to burst?!

me & the beans after a quick visit from the eve elf. :)

in the white & drifted snow

we love the snow. especially in short bursts in the backyard.

ellery could not grasp the difference between the action of snowing versus snow being on the ground. so 50,000 times a day she would look out the window & dreamily announce that it was snowing. it usually wasn't. by the end of the trip we got her to at least differentiate that it was snowing on the ground or snowing in the sky. she also asked if we could go where it would snow at our house. austin said absolutely yes, we'll move right away! :)

austin james is a big bully in the snow. he gets all giddy & acts like a school boy pulling on some pigtails.
         
he buried cocobean alive & while i told him enough was enough, she grinned from ear to ear & laughed her head off. he chased jellybean & chucked snowballs at her & while i told him enough was enough, she grinned from ear to ear & laughed her head off.

this sequence is of him pounding her with an entire snow shovel full of snow, she runs back to toss the tiniest little snow pebble his way & he sprints off & tackles her. they were in heaven.

this was my favorite shot i got with us playing in the snow. look at that little face!! & those dark brown eyes! love it. cousin jack is talked about often with our girlies. we looove him!

skiing

i haven't been skiing since i was 11 or 12 maybe? college in utah lends itself to some excellent chance to go boarding & since that's what austin mainly does, i'd just go with him. grandma néenée watched our babies while the chief & i got to go up on the mountain with the boys.

brian was exceptionally patient when i tagged along on a few runs with everybody else but mainly i had a wonderful time going it solo. never felt like i was holding anybody up & really really enjoyed myself. even made a few 9 year old skiing buddies. haha

the views overlooking the tetons were indescribable.

*for these all being iphone photos i was pretty impressed :)

december days

december before cmas was a blast in it's own right.

busy but fun busy. well that's not entirely true. austin did a lot of homework. so not so fun busy for him. :)

holidays in hawaii

happy thanksgiving & happy birthday to austin from maui!

hodgman hawaii fam pics

dad's remote on his camera wasn't working so we literally asked some early morning joggers to take the picture. she stood as far from the tripod'ed camera as possible & held down the button. i thought it was a pretty great success. haha

i love my family. mostly my dad is the photographer but now that we all have awesome cameras, we are trying to learn from the master. which means he actually makes it into a shot or 2. :)

classic kathryn & stephanie being ridiculous. & luke tearing after us is pretty priceless.

grandkid pics: 5 kids barely 6 years old & under is a hard audience. they would NOT stand in the order we wanted them. haha

 but if they're not the cutest kids ever, i don't know what's what! :)

ka'anapali

the sunrises

not as many shots of the sunrises, not all were up that early. :)

the ocean

most  days the ocean was warmer than the pools so we preferred it.

the beans could have floated in that water all day if we'd let them.

do you see the gigantic turtle head?

the pools

the pools were epic. just completely incredible! 

a tad cold for us to stay in forever so there were continuous trips to one of the many hot tubs. :)

the hotel (marriott ocean club)

the town (lahaina) 

the sunsets

thank you SO much gramvi & g'pa hodgman for our family trip to paradise. :)