Christmas Day

I always have such good intentions for big holidays, and somehow I always manage to keep my camera in front of my fact just long enough to grab a few shots and then I put it down and forget to pick it back up! (And I need to get better about getting Kyle and myself in the pictures)

Christmas morning was wonderful, I love waking up to a white Christmas.

The boys got exactly what they asked for. Porter was in love with the paddle ball and Bridger got his beloved alligator... although I didn't end up getting a picture of him with it...

As they opened presents I loved the looks on their faces. At one point Bridger found that he had candy canes in his stocking and from then on, he kept one in his hand while he opened presents with his other hand. Other than that, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

December catch-up...minus Christmas

 December started out with our usual Christmas kick-off. A yummy dinner of glazed ham and dutch potatoes followed by putting up the tree, decorating and then watching Christmas movies.

 The boys really liked decorating the tree this year, especially when they found they ornaments they had picked out last year.

 And Bridger was so excited that it was his year to put the star on the top of the tree. He carried the star around with him all night long until it was time.

 Then it was up to Momma and Daddy's bed to watch The Grinch in our jammies... always one of my favorite nights and one that I look forward to every year.

 Family night at the Hobby Lobby, picking out this years ornaments. They had several that they debated between until the Angry Bird ornaments caught their eyes.

 Of course we couldn't pass up the Angry Birds, and better yet, they were plush and indestructible... how can you go wrong?

 One day we headed to Old Navy... the boys were going to have a pajama party at school and they wanted new pajamas. And we all know how much Momma loves Old Navy jammies, so when I noticed that they were half off, I had to grab myself a pair.
Sadly the boys came down with strep throat before their party and they weren't able to go to school for it... so we had a pajama day of our own at home in our new pajamas.

 Another day we headed out to Color Me Mine to make a present for Daddy. This is something we'll have to repeat, the boys loved it... and so did Mommy.

 Instead of the gingerbread trains that we've made in years past, I took the easy way out when I found a gingerbread kit at Costco. The boys loved them. Both to eat and to decorate!

 And of course, writing letters to Santa.

Porter wanted one thing this year. A paddle ball. That was it, he didn't want to ask for anything else. He figured he could ask for other things next year, but this year he just wanted a paddle ball.

 And Bridger wanted an alligator. Not sure what kind, but he wanted an alligator.

It was a good month. Busy, but good. I'm always amazed at how quickly the holidays go.

Thanksgiving Weekend

I was scheduled to work Thanksgiving. I got put on-call, but that meant that we still had to stay in town. I threw together a make-shift Thanksgiving dinner at home and we packed to head out to Moab the next morning.

We had fun going to the zoo (I know, I didn't realize that there was a zoo in Moab. If you go, I highly recommend staying as far away from the llamas as possible... they really do spit and it tastes and smells terrible... don't ask how I know)

 We fed some animals, and Daniel was the only one brave enough to feed the camel with his mouth... he narrowly escaped without a kiss.

 Post-zoo snack.

 Then we headed out to find Dinosaur tracks. It ended up being a bit of a wild goose chase, with no goose in the end, but we had a lot of fun.
And I think these three little boys like their Gramma.

 And each other.

 A lot.
They played together and loved holding hands everywhere they went.

 They were all pretty good sports about the Christmas tree hunting this year. Especially when you consider that we were at it for a good 8 hours. And luckily found exactly 3 decent trees for our 3 families. Kind of slim pickings this year!

 I love going tree hunting. It's one of my favorite traditions, and I really missed doing it last year.

 It was a great weekend... too short, but a lot of fun.

November catch-up...minus Thanksgiving

I'm not sure where all my pictures are from November... I certainly hope that this isn't all that I took. November started out mild enough.

 

Then the snowstorm hit. Our leaves hadn't all fallen.  It destroyed our tree in the front yard. Sadly it is the only flowering plum that we liked. Kyle spent a lot of time this past summer pruning it so it looked great... and now she's broken. 

We hoped we would be able to save the tree, but with several more snowstorms that hit, more and more branches broke off.

If there's something that I've learned about living where we do, it's that we get more snow than is forecasted... significantly more. 

We live next to the bench of the mountain, so when the weather says to expect 5-7 inches, we really know that that means expect 9-12 inches.

Next summer we'll have to figure out if this tree can be saved, or if we need to pick a new tree to put in its place.

Oh, and then we found out that this was coming. Sometime in the middle of July... same as Porter was. In fact, I'm due the day after Porter was born.

We're thrilled! It's been in the works for a while and we are so excited to have another one join the family.

October catch up... minus Halloween

Here's a little recap of the goings on in October at our house.

 Bike rides to the park.

 Popsicles and pumpkins on the front porch.

 Jumping in lots and lots of leaves.

 Climbing in trees to drop leaves on your brother... who is stil jumping in leaves.

 And the first snowfall of the season. Porter went out to catch the flakes on his tongue, while Bridger and I watched from the window.

It ended with Halloween of course, but I did post THAT on time.

Carlsbad Day 3

I awoke to this little boy bringing me a bouquet of my favorite flowers. We walked past a flower stand every day on our way to the beach, and since this little guy and Kyle woke up early, they headed to that flower stand to bring me these.

I decided to leave my camera at home for the day. We ended up spending most of it at the beach. We built more sand castles, dug holes and boogie boarded. Around lunch time we headed back to the condo and changed so we could go eat. We ended up walking all over Carlsbad, eating at a local pizza place, shopping at antique stores and buying the best oranges I've ever had at a farmer's market.
After a couple hours the boys were done with the shopping, so we headed back to the beach.

Once it got dark we decided to head to the Oceanside Pier. It was beautiful with the lights at night. We headed down the pier and I was so surprised at the amount of people out there fishing. It was a fun walk down the pier and then we headed home and packed up for the next day.
We drove back to Las Vegas the next day. I was a little nervous the whole trip that something was going to happen... particularly that we would break down in Death Valley... not sure why, but it was a very real fear.
As we headed back to Vegas we blew a tire (and when I say blew a tire, I mean completely shredded it). And we blew it in the middle of Death Valley. We were able to get on the spare and drive slowly into the next town that was 15 miles away to get a new tire.

It was a fun trip, full of so many fun memories. I hope to be able to repeat it soon.