Christmas

On our way up to Utah, we stopped in Vegas for a couple days. We spent quite a bit of time at Treasure Islands' Fashion Show mall. LOVE this place, and Ken was so thrilled to spend time shopping with us! :) We got some last minute Christmas shopping done, and also took the girls into Dillard's to get makeovers. As fun as shopping is, we were exhausted when we were done! A nap was definitely in order which is exactly what we did. Later on we walked down the strip, and hit a few hotels/casinos as well as the M&M factory; four floors of chocolate in cute containers! We took Jessica and Erika over to New York, New York to ride the roller coaster. Ken and I were all-to-happy to pass on riding, especially at $15 a ticket! So we hung out with Kyle while the girls did their thing. Vegas was fun, but we were ready to move on to Utah for the rest of our Christmas fun.

Below are a few of the fun things we did while in Utah:

The Polar Express (Heber, UT)

Made Christmas trees out of cookies!




Waited patiently to open presents from the cousin gift exchange


Ready-Set-Go!


Enjoyed opening presents from Santa, Mom/Dad, and Nana/Papa







Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

How could I forget?

How could I forget to post the most important thing of all! I know my mom will call me just as soon as she sees this, so she can give me an earful about posting pictures and videos of her on my blog. However, I could not resist and will gladly take that phone call! My Dad was unable to go with us to Utah, so we had to make sure my mom was having a good time. I think she did :)

Love ya, Mom!

Winter Wonderland!

(Kyle and his cousin, Carson)

For Christmas, we planned a road trip up to Utah to spend time with my side of the family. My brother (Jason) and his wife (Jill) were awesome enough to let our entire family stay with them...there were close to 30 of us all together, so it was a house full! It was the most perfect time to be up there: the weather cooperated and we finally got a White Christmas which looked like a Winter Wonderland. Here are a few pics to prove it!

As you can see from the following pictures (and the 3 above), we were able to play outside on several occasions with my brother's snowmobiles.The kids had a blast! Jessica and Josie being pulled.
Emma pulling Kyle and Carson.



Erika was definitely hands-on in everything we did. I think she is our little dare-devil! She is not afraid to try anything.

All Kyle was interested in doing was eating the snow!
This definitely was a Winter Wonderland for us desert folks!

Here I go again!

Well, it has been almost two month's since my last post. I seem to do this quite often! We have been busy preparing for the Holidays, and having a lot of fun doing so. I will post more when I can, but I just wanted to say Happy Holidays (a little late) to everyone! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas, and have a happy and safe New Year's. (I really slacked this year on sending out Christmas cards, so here it is!)

All dressed up!

This is a rare occasion, having all of us dress up! Ken and I usually do not dress up for Halloween, however Jessica and Erika really wanted us to this year. I am glad we did! It was actually a lot of fun, and makes you feel like a kid again. I would recommend it to anyone! We did the whole trick-or-treating thing in my in-law's neighborhood. My brother's family (Justin) went with us as well, so it was fun for the kids. Jessica actually went off with a group of "guy friends" for a couple hours...I was really surprised as she is usually so shy. Here are a few pics of the night!

Pumpkin Time!

This year we took the kids and a couple of their cousins to Schnepf farms to enjoy the fall festivities and to pick out their pumpkins. The farm is a lot of fun, but I think definitely overpriced. Next year we may just get our pumpkins from the Wal-mart bins...can't beat pumpkins for under $5 each!



(I think it is time for a new camera, mine is really not working so well!)


We had my family over this past weekend to carve pumpkins and enjoy a yummy Mexican feast! I am hoping this becomes an annual family activity as it is always a lot of fun!




Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween!

Vampire

Scary Kyle

I couldn't get a good shot of him because he kept moving around, so it is a little cropped. However I thought he really does look creepy! I am almost tempted to change his Halloween costume to a vampire.

Jessica's Birthday

Jessica turned '15' on October 22nd...yikes, I still can't believe I have a teenage daughter. Last year we didn't do much for her birthday since we had only been home a couple weeks with her and Erika. This year, she wanted a party so we invited a few of her friends over. They ate, played games, and sat in the hot tub and told ghost stories until the party ended. Instead of eating the cake, they all shoved it in their faces...crazy girls!

Boating

Well, I am finally cleaning out my camera and going through my pics so I thought I would post an update on what we have been up to. This summer was HOT and I am so excited that fall is finally here. Fall here is not the prettiest(no fall colors) but the temps are at least in the 80-90's for the most part which is a nice change from the 110-115 temps (not to mention all the restaurants/stores now have pumpkin flavored everything,YUM!).

We got a boat this past May which we thought would be a fun summer activity for the family. That has proven to be true! Jessica, Erika, and Kyle LOVED taking the boat out to various lakes where they could tube, swim, and explore. The girls loved inviting girls in our neighborhood which has helped in making friends and getting over their shyness. Jessica and I both are learning to wake board which has been a blast! A few weeks ago (the first weekend in October) was our last weekend boating for the season because it is now getting "cold". I use the term "cold" lightly, because it is still somewhat hot here, but the water is a little chilly...especially when us girls wake board as we spend most of our time in the water (we constantly fall!). Here are a few pics from our boating trips:

Fall Break

This last week was fall break for the kids, so we took off a few days and headed up North to camp. We met my sister (Jenny) and her family up there as well, and had a lot of fun! The camp ground was really nice, so I wouldn't say that it was completely roughing it. We did tent camp, but the grounds also had bathrooms and showers which was really quite convenient! It was cold in the evenings, but the temps were in the 80's during the day. It was great to be in the pines and breathe the fresh air which is a nice break from living in a big city. Besides seeing some pretty birds, we only saw crazy little squirrels and a few elk. We even heard the elk calls at night which was really cool, and loud! Both Ken and I were ready to go home to our own bed by the end of the week, but the kids had fun and Erika didn't want to leave! Jessica is a little more "high maintenance" if you will, and so she was also anxious to get home....she pretended to kiss the driveway when we pulled up to our house!

I love this pic! Just Kyle and Daddy hanging out in the creek. Erika and Josie (cousin) turned to pose for the camera! These two are two peas in a pod and best buds! Here is a picture of part of our campsite. You can see Ken playing chess with Josh (Jenny's oldest son) which is what he did most of the time! Jenny has 4 boys, and all of them had fun trying to beat Ken with no avail. He enjoys teaching them though. Also, Erika is french braiding her Uncle Chris's hair...her and Jessica did this a lot to all the boys! Here is Jessica french braiding Josh's hair....he looks like he is in pain, and Jessica couldn't help but laugh. I can attest to the pain; when she french braids, your head feels like it is going to explode! Erika is a little more gentle! The cousin's hanging out in the tree. It is next to impossible to get everyone to smile and look at the camera at the same time, as you can see below. I guess that's what makes them fun! Everyone in line to cross the creek!

And lastly, a funny moment compliments of Erika! She would probably get after me for posting this, but it was the perfect moment caught on video. She was trying to get her cousin, Alex,wet by kicking up water...