Happy Birthday Grandpa Chewy!

For my Dad's Birthday we went to dinner at his favorite restaurant, "Big Foot BBQ" and then bowling.

     {We missed Derek and Keli, they were both working}

Happy Birthday!  Thanks for always making us laugh and for being the best Dad and Grandpa around!  We Love You!!

Christopher Pop-In-Kins

On the day after Thanksgiving we received a special package on our front door from the North Pole...from Santa!!  As the kids opened it they found a book that told the story of a cute little elf that would be staying in our home until Christmas Eve.  He would watch them all the time and each morning would be hiding in a different spot for them to find him.  Then on Christmas Eve he would have to return back to Santa to report how the kids had been behaving.

This was such a fun tradition and the kids say how much they miss him every morning and can't wait to see if he comes back next year!

Christmas Festivities

I love all of our Christmas traditions because we always have so much fun!  We had pizza for dinner, followed by a Christmas movie, (this year we picked "Reflections of Christ") then our Boys vs. Girls gingerbread house decorating competition, Derek opened all his presents since he had to work the next two days, and then we all opened our pj's.

The boys think they win every single year...which this year they might have.  They snuck in and switched their broken house for our good one.  We didn't catch on so we say they are disqualified for being cheaters! 8)

Rich, the kids and I went home and had a slumber party in the girls room.  We woke up and saw the gifts Santa brought, called Nana and Grandpa Fuzz in Botswana, and then headed over to my families house.  We ate the best breakfast EVER (breakfast casserole, french toast, monkey bread, and hot chocolate) and then opened presents.  Later we all drove out to the fire station to hang out with Derek for a while, then came back to my parents house and ate some more!

Sedona Lights

We all drove down to Sedona to eat dinner and see the Christmas lights at Tlaquepaque tonight.  There are more than a million lights and there are tons of cute things for the kids to see.

After 6 years of trying, guess who we finally talked into sitting on Santa's lap?!?

He was nervous and choked under pressure when he was asked what he wanted for Christmas though...maybe next year!

We came back to our house and had hot chocolate and hung out while Monica showed us some of her amazing card tricks! It was really fun and will definitely become a tradition for every year.

Caiden's First Grade Play

All four First grade classes at Caiden's school worked together to perform a play called "The Mitten".  They chose 12 narrators and Caiden was one of them.  He was so excited and didn't seem nervous at all.

Jonathan who played the Grandpa, Brent who was also a narrator, and Caiden - Best buddies

(Sorry, I still haven't figured out how to turn the videos around the other direction)

The Brian Regan Show

Jon and Keli surprised us with an early Christmas gift to the Brian Regan show.  We were so excited!

Thanks J and K!  We had SoOoOo much fun!  We haven't laughed/cried that hard in a long time!!

Caiden's Winter Dance Performance

 I heard there was an awesome dance teacher that taught at Caiden's school so I asked him if he wanted to try it this year.  His answer was, "No way Mom, I don't want to wear a tutu!!"  I kept telling him he wouldn't have to wear one so then he decided he wanted to try it.  He ended up absolutely loving it.  They practiced all semester and then had a performance on Saturday at one of the high schools here in Flag.  He was so excited to dance up on the big stage in front of everyone.  Then two days later they performed twice in front of their whole school.

(This isn't a very good picture-the auditorium at the high school was really dark and we were far away, but Caiden is the one on the bottom left)

Stretching before the two school performances.

He did so good and we are really proud of him!

(The ending was soo cute but my camera shut off so I didn't get it.  Dangit!)

Just remember to pause my music on the right side, I know so annoying!  Sorry!

Giving Thanks

For Thanksgiving this year we were lucky to celebrate twice! Rich's whole family (minus Tom's family in Georgia, and his parents serving a mission in South Africa) we were all there at Chad and Becky's house. Becky cooked for two days before everyone even got there. She did an amazing job and everything was really good.





The cousins had a great time playing together the whole weekend.



I was even lucky enough to get foot massages from sweet little Ellie.


On Saturday we had Thanksgiving #2 at my families house. Derek was off work, and Keli and Jon were home off their honeymoon so we were all able to be there. I forgot to get any pictures, but I did get pictures of the food table, and then deleted them somehow as I was trying to get them on my blog...ugh!

One cute story though:
Caiden was soooo excited to do the wishing bone this year. On Thanksgiving we told him he had to wait a few days so the bone could dry out a little before trying to break it with his sisters. He was kinda sad for a minute and then said, "Well it's okay. I have to think of a new wish anyways." I asked him why, what his first wish was and he told me, "I wished that we could all be together to eat Thanksgiving dinner and I got that wish Mom. We were all together today."
Aww, what a sweet boy he is!