Holidays

From Thanksgiving to New Years there's a whole lot of activity, family time, money spent, and food eaten. 

Here's the numbers. 

4 different states 

2 murder mystery parties 

3 Thanksgiving dinners 

2 birthdays 

10 personalized calendars 

2 "special" musical numbers 

3 Christmas light displays 

1 mountain hiked 

53 relatives seen 

lots of board games 

too many calories...

Here's a large chunk of the 53 relatives we saw over the holidays.  This is the Mickelson gang celebrating Thanksgiving in one of the many cultural halls of Orem, UT.  We had a great time with the most delicious food, a good bunco tournament, and an eclectic talent show.  Will's talent was doing an impression of a plane crashing.  

We spent most of our time in Utah here in Aspen Grove.  The snow was falling as we drove up here, and it was so cute to see the excitement in the little boys voices.  

We spent Christmas with my family in Washington.  Here's the Sommercorn Murder Mystery, "Under the Big Top."  This was the year of the fake mustache.  It started at the Mickelson murder mystery and made its way to Seattle, and even onto Joseph's face in the nativity below.

Mustache wearing, footie pajama-ed, guitar player.  Sorry Hailey, I had to include this picture.  

It was sunny and warm for my birthday again!  So I got out the sprinkler for Will to play in for a bit.  He got cold and bored quickly.

I went to get a haircut for my birthday and came home with a whole new look!  Elliot wouldn't let me hold him for a bit.  I got some sushi supplies for my birthday, and a bike!  My last bike was stolen when I was pregnant with Will about 3.5 years ago, and I've been missing it since then.  I've been taking the boys on bike rides lately and it is so much fun!  Elliot is not a fan of the bike trailer, but hopefully he'll come around.

For Elliot's birthday we made this classic yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  The frosting was made with sour cream and Elliot would not eat one bite of it.  Epic fail!!  Pity.  I definitely enjoyed it and ended up eating a lot of cake that weekend.

Britton's family met us here for the birthday party and we went to the Palo Alto Children's Museum and Zoo.  Elliot got to chase balls around and climb on fake animals.  His favorite thing!

Another memorable part of the holidays was trying to take family pictures with our own camera and tripod.  We pushed our jumbo stroller up a huge hill to use this outdoors-y background.

Two photo shoots later we end up picking a slightly blurry picture as the best of the bunch.  Maybe better luck next year.

We are still developing our own Christmastime traditions.  We got to see a lot of holiday light displays this year.  One in Spanish Fork, UT, one at the Oakland temple, and Clam Lights pictured below in Renton, WA.  On the middle left you can make out the walking clam lights courtesy of Ivars seafood.

Nana got the boys some adorable matching Christmas outfits.  In fact, all the cousins had matching clothes thanks to the new Carter's Outlet in Brentwood.

It's Christmas morning!  Britton says that to Will every time he wakes up.  Will was super excited Christmas morning and was very gracious when opening his presents.  Everything was, "Just what I wanted!"  It made the adults feel very appreciated.

Finally, we have decided on a New Year's tradition.  Hike a big mountain!  Of course this is only possible when the weather is ridiculously good.  The Olson ladies started from my sister in-law's back yard, and hiked all the way to the top of Mt. Diablo.  5 1/2 hours later we had the absolute best view of the bay area.  It was a fun and healthy way to start the new year.  Happy 2012 to you all!