Alberta for New Years!

Time to fly home!!!!! I looooooove going home! I was so excited. Quinny was excited too - this was the first time she got her own seat!

She is such a happy traveller, seriously. I'm always nervous, because she's 2 and unpredictable and you never know what's coming. But EVERY single time she shocks me with how amazing she is. She stays happy and content and understands whats happening and knows that she needs to just play with the stuff in her bag that I pack her.

We flew into Calgary this time, so we still had a three hour drive after the airplane so we were all happy to get home! We were waiting until we were all together in a few days before we did presents, but my mom of course just could not wait. She had to let Q open one, which was not surprising and very funny. It was a new game! It's actually an excellent game for toddlers - it requires hand eye coordination as well as color matching. Awesome! Five minutes in Grandma's house and spoiled already :)

We went for breakfast on the 31st with this cutie and his parents! I can't believe how fast he is growing! I am sad that I'm missing it! But so so good to catch up with Courtney. I miss my dear friend!

You can't see Easton here, but Q is engulfing him in a giant hug haha. She loved him and they were pretty cute together

Jenna came to town for the day/evening so she came early to come spend the afternoon with us! Oh man, love this girl. We were together for about 2 minutes when she says "okay, here's the thing..." and proceeds to bare her soul, because that's how we roll. I love that my cousin is also an incredible friend. Q had a great day, playing with her and jumping all over and showing Jenna all her tricks  

Time to get dressed into her New Years Eve party dress!! These girls are way too cute

Love you always JennaBear

Jenna left to go to her party with her friends, and the rest of the family came over for the evening. Uncle Larry (jenna's dad) brought us this... oh man we laughed!!! On Dec 29th there was a 4.9 earthquake and shook the whole house! It was wild. So Larry made us this "glad you survived" cake! haha!! Things like this are always why I say that I married someone who reminds me so much of my favorite uncle!!

As soon as she heard we were coming home, Brooke texted me right away and said she's spending New Years with us and ditching her friends, which totally made me laugh. She's the best. We had a fun night together, and Quinny of course was stoked to have her "Bookie" around!

UNCLE BRANDON! Him and Shelby showed up around 6pm and I was SO HAPPY! And so was this little girl!!! YAY! She instantly started giggling and giving them hugs and was so stoked. Super cute.

Just posing with our cake. Haha! Let me state here that this was 11pm at night, and look who was still going strong. We tried multiple times to lay her down in bed - we even put movies on for her in there and everything. But no way, she was not having any of that. She would lay and watch her movie for a bit, and then come running back out, happy as can be. She is NEVER happy late at night, she turns into the biggest grump ever when she is tired. But it's like she knew without us saying that if she was grumpy, we would force her to go to bed, so she was just happy and stayed up. Neither of us wanted to spend a ton of time trying to get her sleep, so we just went with it and let her run around and be her funny self

Uncle Larry and Grandma! Love love love!

11:30pm, eating ice cream cake. Her pants were off by this point, but still going strong

Midnight! Happy New Years! Look at Lauren just loving life haha!

WOO!

Now her shirt is off too, but still not sleepy. I'm looking forward to watching you grow this year my little bear!

My momma! 

Grandma!... I took a lot of selfies apparently! haha! 

And this picture I needed to make big, because it is the best picture we have ever taken together. I wanted to take a picture of the four of us and they made fun of my short arms, so I handed the camera to Jon. As I did that, Brandon reaches his arms around and squishes our faces together and is laughing like a maniac! I tried to wiggle out but the grip he had on our heads was unbelievable! I was laughing so hard I cried. These people are such goofs and my heart just bursts for love for them.

Eventually we tried again for the picture haha

The whole gang. What a fun night

There are so many things that are funny about this picture - like Jon sitting on Shelby, and the thing around Larry's head, and Q is poking me. Too funny

It was such a great night - we even had a crokinole tournament! Lots of games and lots of laughs. I love my family so much. Finally at 1:30am this was the sweet girl, conked out at last. New Years ended a lot like Christmas Day - cozy in bed, all together, happy and content. It's a good life.