Christmas in SLC/Steamboat

Eric and I took the kids up to Steamboat a couple days before Christmas to celebrate with my parents and Quentin.  Then we drove over to Salt Lake City to spend Christmas with my extended family.  We had such a great time.  It was fun to take Eric and the kids to Salt Lake and to show them what my family does for Christmas.  It took 6 hours to drive there and the kids did really well.  The weather cooperated and the drive was pretty smooth.  Here are some pictures from the Christmas festivities:

First we celebrated Ashton's Birthday with Grammy and Grandpa Rlowe.  They got him an ice cream cake.  He loved diving in to it!

Aunt Steph gave Cate a hair dryer for Christmas.  She said "I can't believe that I finally have a hair dryer".  I think that she likes it.

Uncle Q gave her Dora's backpack.  It came with a camera, a compass, a spotting scope, and a map.  On our drive to Salt Lake, Cate kept getting her map out to tell us which way to go.

When we were in Salt Lake we went downtown to the temple to see all of the Christmas lights.  At 5:30 they turn on all of the lights at once.  It was so beautiful.

On Christmas eve my Grandparents came to our hotel to have breakfast with us.  It was so great to spend some time with them and for Cate and Ashton to see their great grandparents. 

Here is a picture of us in the the lobby of the hotel.

Later that day we went to Crown Burger (a Lowe family tradition) for lunch with my Aunt and Uncle and cousins on my Dad's side of the family.  Cate and Susanna (my second cousin) were the only girl kids there.  Cate loved playing with susanna's hair.  It was so fun to watch them together.

On Christmas eve we went over to my Aunt Julie and Uncle Bill's house for dinner.  Here is a family picture of us before we went to dinner.

This is a picture of me with some of my cousins and some of our kids.  From left to right:  Missy and her son Will (3 weeks), Emily and Charlie (Lindsay's son), Elizabeth with Cate, Lindsay, Me and Ashton.

We were so lucky because Santa took some time out of his busy schedule to come to our party.  In this picture Santa is singing Rudolph and he had my Aunt Julie, Uncle Bill, and cousin in law Walter dress up with Antlers and noses.  We had so much fun having Santa visit.  We all sang a bunch of Christmas songs with him.

This is my cousin Elizabeth and her friend Todd singing with Santa.

As you can see Ashton wasn't too excited to see Santa...

Santa didn't want to take too much blame for the crying kids :)  He was actually very good with the kids and it was so much fun having him there.

Cate wasn't too excited either.

The next morning (Christmas morning), we took the kids over to my parent's room in the hotel to open the presents that Santa brought.  Here is Cate checking out what Santa brought.

Here is a picture of the kids opening their presents.

Here is Cate checking out her stocking

Ashton with his stocking

Playing with their new toys

Later that evening we went over to my Aunt Coralie and Uncle Bruce's house for dinner.  Here is a picture of all the second cousins together with the cowboy hats that my mom got for them.  It was very difficult to get them all to sit on the couch.  From left to right:
Will (3 weeks), Cate (3), Jack (3), Charlie (9 months), Ashton (1)

Cate and my Mom playing Go Fish with my cousin Eric.  Notice how small the cards are.

It was a very busy Christmas but we had such a great time.  It was so nice that we were able to see everyone in Salt Lake.  I haven't seen my cousins in years and it was great to be able to catch up with them all.