Santa's coming! I know him!

Yay for Thanksgiving. And yay for it being over and for us being back home. It was great to visit with our long lost family members, but it's also nice to be done traveling. Here are a few pictures from our trip and a few from this week.

Before we left Colin was being awesome and balancing his pacifier on his nose. Awesome.

We were going to take family pictures the same night that we got to Iowa. Nate waited to shave until we got there. He wanted to leave his mexi-stache, but then he decided just to let me take a picture of it and then get rid of it. He's going for the Uncle Rico look from Napoleon Dynamite. 

Colin finally got a picture with his great-aunt Gina. They share the same birthday, so I'm sure they'll be BFFs.

Scott and Lenna looking very powerful at Granny Charles's house where we had Thanksgiving dinner.

The girls all sat and colored while we waited for lunch. Hannah is such a pretty princess.

Colin loves playing with Papa. He can always make him laugh.

This is a picture of Granny Charles's refrigerator. I took a picture because I was so proud that Colin and I made it on there. (He's in a few other places too, but not in this picture.)

Donovan was a crack up playing Ring Around the Rosies by himself. His "all fall down" is hilarious. 

What a handsome kid. 

Great-Granny Charles with Kaylee and Rachel. The girls looked so classy with their hair done up in Princess Leia braids. (Rachel's had come down by this point.)

We all hung out at Lenna's apartment before half the group went back home to Utah.

Colin looks like such a goof in this hat, but I still think he's awesome.

Nate was playing with/tormenting Mason, who took refuge under the laundry bin. Nate captured this shot while Mason was peeking out.

On our last night in Iowa the grownups and Colin went out to dinner in Omaha. Colin looks awesome in this hat. It almost looks like an old school army helmet in this picture.

And now we're back home. When we got back I started feeding Colin rice cereal with a spoon, and he loves it. The first time he was pretty good about just letting me put the stuff in his mouth (and whining when I wasn't fast enough with the next spoonful), but this time he wanted to hold the spoon and help me make a mess. 

These pictures don't really do justice to just how messy he was. 

Sometimes I can't help taking pictures when Colin isn't doing anything other than lying on the floor being handsome. He's just so darn cute!

Colin's really good at playing with his toys now. He rolls over to get them and can keep them in his mouth long enough to get some satisfaction out of chewing them. Here he is being oh so happy playing with his Ikea dragon.

Hannah bought Colin the cutest shirt for Christmas, and since we had our ward Christmas breakfast today I put it on him. Thanks for helping Colin to continue to look good Hannah!

Santa and Mrs. Claus made an appearance at the party. I figured that since I'm not taking Colin anywhere special to see Santa, this was his only chance. We were kind of being hustled along since there were so many people there, so I didn't get the world's best picture. Colin was more interested in his hands than he was in Santa.

Nate told me he didn't want to be in any of the pictures, and I said fine. But Santa was having none of that. He made Nate come and sit on his lap. I love this picture. Classic Nate face.

Then someone volunteered to take a picture of all of us, so I got in there too. 

Yay for Santa. And yay for him making Nate be in the picture!