christmas break recap: utah

okay, i have been horrible about blogging lately. and there is a reason! our photo collection on our computer has been in total disarray because around the time dane was born, my computer died and tommy's needed an OS update and we lost iphoto. so we need to develop some sort of organizing system to sort through our giant pile of pictures on tommy's computer, and it's been too intimidating to do. . . . but it's one of my goals to do it in the next month or so.

it's so funny how much dane changed over this trip! three weeks is definitely a long time in the life of a baby. by the time we left california at the end of the trip, he was doing a whole bunch of new tricks, like gurgling, holding and sucking on toys, standing on his legs, loving books, grabbing his dad's glasses off his face, smacking his lips when he sees food, sticking his tongue out of the side of his mouth (only the right side, haha). he is SO fun right now. everyone has told us that four months is a really great time, and we TOTALLY agree.

dane's first ugly sweater party in north carolina (although, let's be honest, his sweater isn't ugly. it's adorable--like everything he wears)

and then we hopped on dane's first plane flight! he went on six different flights this christmas--he's averaging almost 2 per month of life now. he was really great on the way out to utah--not so much on the way back.

and dane got to meet all these new friends! including auntie melissa and cousin zach--who is two months older and made him look like a tiny little skinny guy.

also, uncle troy! who he LOVED. (and he met shane and kiley and kristen, although no pictures!)

he also had to do physical labor in the kitchen. no getting out of working in this family!

we went one night to temple square and the city creek mall to look at the lights. dane was a champ and it was totally worth it. this was our big outing for the trip in utah (other than going to see les mis with all of tommy's siblings and without dane).  

loving uncle troy, his own reflection, and his christmas pajamas. he was actually pretty sick on christmas eve and christmas day (a really bad cold!) so we didn't take many pictures... and he was sleeping while we opened presents. a pretty sad first christmas for him, but luckily he didn't even notice. 

the leininger traditional christmas morning picture:

we also got to bring dane to meet both of his sets of great-grandparents (on my side, anyway). i was so happy we got to go see them! we had a really nice afternoon at the myres', and a good evening with the murphys. the great-grandparents myres:

and the great-grandparents murphy:

what a difference two months makes! zach was grabbing at dane and dane was pretty much just oblivious to zach's existence. it won't be that way next time they see each other!

we came in from watching les mis (and leaving tommy's mom with both babies!) and the four of them were just hanging out like this. they looked like they had a good time--hopefully we weren't just imagining things.

other than dane's post-trip fussiness and cold, we had a really lovely (white!) christmas in utah. everything was so much more fun with dane, and he didn't even know what was going on yet. it was so awesome.