Christmas

We had Christmas in Tucson and had a great time as expected. We took our family photo in the fabulous Arizona winter weather. Notice Easton and Devery's newest addition, Noelle who got her first 7 hour roadtrip at age 2 weeks! I don't know who I'm more impressed by, mom or baby, but we were so glad to meet her. Way to go! She's beautiful!

I love the way we do pictures. We pick the color, put it on, go outside, take the picture (all in a matter of an hour). Done. And it always looks great - but if not, hey, there's always next year. The way family pictures should be. Though I'm sure it would only work in a family of a lot of boys.

Hannah and Jeannie created a secret "Narnia room" for Allison and Julia to sleep in.

When closed the bookcase behind Allison appears a solid wall, but in fact opens to reveal stairs leading up into a carpeted crawl space. Hannah decorated it with dangling white Christmas lights, beads, and draped delicate fabrics over the storage hidden at the periphery. Allison and Julia had the honor of keeping the much-cherished musical carousel next to their pillow and many other of Hannah's precious dolls, dress-ups, glass dishes and other things from her childhood. It was enchanting to say the least and they spent the majority of time hidden away up there.


Of course we did the traditional Eegee's (pictured), breakfast at Brawley's, shopping spree at Savers, white elephant exchange with surprise visit from Steve - uh, I mean Santa (neither of our girls fell for it this year), and lot's of other stuff I forget.

Here are Julia and Mason trying to get some dog food (aka cheese).

I have to include this pic because it was amazing. All the guys moved this ginormous tree (with casualty to neither man nor tree) for Steve's courtyard remodel that is going to be gorgeous.

Ew gross, looks like Steve wore the same shirt the whole time! Teasing.

We had a great time with everyone!

Thanksgiving and Christmas

Thanksgiving and Christmas were wonderful! Between the two we were able to see every member of both our families. We did all kinds of stuff I won't remember but I'll at least document those with pictures. ;)

Here is delicious Thanksgiving at my parent's house in Highland with lots of great company, including my beautiful Thomas grandparents.

And we were lucky enough to have Erik's sister Hannah down from BYU-I for the weekend. We're so glad you came!

We visited the Temple Square lights which is always a treat and especially for Alli and Julia who were seeing it for the first time.

Cami and Troy came all the way from Bismarck and we loved being with them! I'll never forget Troy and Cami both falling to the floor laughing so hard at each other for at least 10 min straight. I don't even remember what they were laughing about but it was hilarious. And this isn't the first time I've witnessed them do this. Love you both! The older cousins put on a play (Wizard of Oz) which was quite clever. Allison was the proud Toto. This girl spends half her life on her knees anyway (loves to pretend she's a cat) so the casting was purrfect (sorry).


And Alicia and John also made it down from Spokane for Christmas. Our kids exchanged Christmas gifts (mostly random toys we found in the house though Jeffrey put much thought into his gift). We love and miss these handsome little guys and their great parents so much!

Halloween in the new 'hood

We moved to beautiful Saratoga Springs the end of October. My dad picked us up from the airport and was a sight for sore eyes. It's so good to be back! I love Julia's face in this one. This is her camera face, serious and staring off somewhere else. I have so many pics like this.
Speaking of Julia, she must have been too young to remember much from a year earlier because within a few days of being around my family she was referring to them as "the new grandparents" and "the new cousins". PS, I am loving living by Jon and Sherri finally! So glad you moved here.


We moved into our house 2 days before Halloween. And since that day we've been getting well-acquainted with the once coveted title of "homeowner". Which is precisely why I'm 5 months late writing about Halloween. (You think that's bad, well I've still got Allison's sticky witch dress sitting in a bucket on the washing machine). And bytheway, we love owning a house.


These adorable aprons were sent to us in Kansas City by Graham (Grandma Hamblin). And if I didn't box them up in January then they'd still be wearing them to this day, guaranteed. Thanks, they loved them!

Here's the big night! Without intending it, we sort of had a Wizard of Oz/Lion, Witch, Wardrobe theme, choose your pick. There are a ton of kids here so the streets were full and our girls had fun.

From the back Julia reminded me of David Bowie in Labyrinth. Um, yikes.