THE DAYTON FAMILY

Today we caroled to lots of family and went to look at the beautiful Christmas lights on Temple Square in Salt Lake. On the way home, Taylor wanted to play with a banana that Grandma Cindy had packed for us to eat. He loves to play 'phone' with bananas. Here is our conversation: Tay: "I wanna call Santy Clause." Me: "Okay, call him!" Tay: "Hello? Oh, hi Santa!" PAUSE Tay: " mhmm, mhmm, mhmm" PAUSE Tay: "Yes, Reindeer - haha!" PAUSE Tay: "Yep! Buh-bye Santa!" Hilarious! He also managed to open the banana all by himself for the first time and ate the whole thing right after this conversation. He was SO proud of himself. :) Here is a cute picture of him today, he has his classic glare that he gives us when we want him to do something that he doesn't like...such as smile for a picture when he wants to keep walking with his cousins, haha! Speaking of cousins, everyone is officially here for our Dayton Family C...

This week we decorated our home for Christmas! We don't have many areas to decorate, but what we do have makes our home feel very warm and festive! Kyla's favorite Christmas item is this little beaded Santa Clause egg from Russia. It motivated her to pull herself up to sit and reach for it! Grandma Cindy was so sweet to provide us with the perfect tree. Taylor was VERY excited to help put it up. He just loves all of the ornaments. They are David's - his mom gave him one every Christmas growing up. :) I especially like our two German nativities. Aunt Bonnie mailed Taylor a chocolate advent calendar from Germany...the chocolate is AMAZING & each piece is huge! Tay loves it (and David & I do too-haha!)

My sister Bonnie,who lives in Germany, had her first baby in September. I, of course, have been dying to meet him, but figured that I would have to wait until January when they came to visit. Still, I kept checking if their were rewards-mile flights (I have been saving up my miles) that would work for our schedule. It seemed like there wasn't ever anything available that was feasible for us. In October, I got the feeling that I really should get Kyla her passport. Then 2 weeks ago, I had been e-mailing my sister a lot and she was sounding down and I was wishing so badly that I could go. On Friday the 19th at 2am I found a flight for Saturday the 20th and then a returning one for the 30th. After freaking out a little bit about if I could actually leave my cute little Taylor for that long (David was able to watch him since it was over Thanksgiving), I booked the flight. The next 36 hours were crazy and tiring, but Kyla and I made it to Germany and were able to spend a week and a half...