Lights, lights, lights....

This Christmas season has already been tons of fun.  Mostly because Joe hasn't really cared about getting presents this year, but would rather do fun Christmassy things.  On the top of his list - lights!  

Our first stop is always the street off of Cherry street.  You know, the cul-de-sac where every house is decorated.  We went with the Trezise and Gonzales families.  Hot Chocolate is a MUST!

Dallin and Joe went around 3 times.  The last time, at a run.  

Max wanted his picture in front of the house where Santa was at the Beach.

I turned the flash off so the lights would look better, but it just made Josh blurry.  Josh cracks me up how excited he is.  When I was putting the lights up at my mom's house, he was my little helper.  He was super excited.  He kept asking: "Are you making Christmas for ME Kimmy?  For me?."  

Next stop - Temple lights, also a must this time of year.  We brought Alex and Michael with us.


Lastly, Brian and I saw this one on the news and it turns out it is literally around the corner from us, so we had to stop by.  This lady has an entire Christmas village in her garage.  This picture didn't do it justice.
With the flash turned off it sparkles a little more:
In the middle she has a little island.  It has water and a pirate ship and everything.

The train coming through the tunnel.  Yeah, it has a working train.
I took a picture of the carousel for my mom.  She likes carousels.
We stood there for at least 15 minutes trying to see everything.  We will definitely visit this one again.  If anyone wants to tag along, let us know.

She only has it on display on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, and she is collecting canned food.  Again, it was worth the visit.

Happy Christmas!

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year, we decided to go to the cabin.  Joe was soooo excited, counting down the days.  Then he found out that Stacy and Paul's family and Tricia and the kids wouldn't be there (as originally planned).  What?? No cousins to play with?  Oh well, we still made the trek up to the cabin to spend Thanksgiving with my mom, dad and Jared.

The great thing about Joe, is that with his very active imagination, he always finds a way to keep entertained.  This is what he was doing in the back seat on the drive up:

We arrived, we cooked, we ate:
That's a lot of food for only 6 people.  Ah leftovers.  We had different versions of Thanksgiving dinner for 3 days.  Joe called dibs on the drumstick:
Shortly after dinner my dad and Jared were leaving to go hunting.  Which meant that they would be taking the ranger with them.  First no cousins, and now no ranger.  What????  We had to fit in a few rides before they left.
Saturday it snowed.  Woo hoo!  It melted as soon as it hit the ground, but it didn't stop Brian and Joe from enjoying it while it came down.
That night we decided to take a drive up the forest road to look for wildlife.  We didn't find any, but we did find some snow that did stick.  Joe had to get out and touch it.
We rode the whole way back with the windows down.  Freezing!  When we got back to the cabin, Brian and I sat by the fire while Joe made us hot chocolate.  Yes, we have trained him well.
Later, Joe and I decorated the tree.

We woke up to snow the next morning.  Not much, but it sure was pretty.
Even though Joe didn't have any cousins to play with, he kept himself busy:
We also watched movies, played board games and rock band, and just had a very relaxing, enjoyable Thanksgiving.  We can't wait to go back for my birthday.

More November happenings

My mom, Sheri and I decided to beat the rush and take the kids to see Santa BEFORE Thanksgiving.  We took Addy, Rowan, Evan and Joshua.  Only Josh and Ro actually made it onto Santa's lap.  Addy took one look at him and thought "no way".  Evan wasn't having any of it either.  I can't really blame them.  We teach our kids about stranger danger and then bring them to sit on an old man's lap.  

Josh was not scared one bit.  He hopped right up and started talking Santa's ear off.  Rowan was a little more reluctant, but once he saw Josh he decided he'd try it too.

Even though I didn't get a picture of her with Santa, I had to take her picture.  She looked adorable that day.  I think this is possibly my favorite Addy outfit ever.  I can't believe I didn't get even one picture of Evan hiding from Santa.  

Of course I have to add this picture.  How cute is she?
Also this month, Joe decided he needed more minutes for his go phone, but I was not about to just give him the $20.00 he needed.  I told him that he had to earn the money himself.  He decided to bake and sell cookies.  So, one Saturday, we baked and frosted 4 dozen peppermint sugar cookies.  Thanks to all of you who agreed to buy from him.  You really made his day, and he earned enough to get his minutes!

Since we knew we would be out of town for Thanksgiving, the Sunday before, we visited Brian's parents and his sister's family.  Joe and "D" love to get together.  Even though they only see each other every few months, they are great friends.  They made s'mores out on the patio after dinner. 

And, finally:
2 down, 1 to go.  The first one is my tree, the second I did at the cabin when we were there for Thanksgiving.  I also got the lights up on my mom's house.  All that's left is her tree.   Tomorrow I will post the obligatory Thanksgiving photos.  

Making the rounds

We spent a couple of our November Saturdays making the rounds to see all of the nephews play. 

If I was a better aunt I would have been going to more games all along, but I cannot tolerate the heat, so September and October were out for me.  My goal was to see each of my nephews play at least once.

Watching Rowan reminded me of Darrel playing soccer when he was little.  I love that he has his tongue hanging out when he plays.  

Also, at Rowan's games I get to hang out with these cute girls:
Miss Addy, is as sassy as ever, and Miss Ruby is cute as can be.

Brian, Joseph and I caught James' last game of the season.  He played flag football this year.  It was fun to watch him play.  I wish I had gone to more of his games.  It was really entertaining.

Sheri gave us a heads up on which game of Alex's would be best.  They were playing the most competitive team (man did they play dirty!)  Each team had beaten the other team once.  And for each team it was their only loss.  It was a good game, although the ref. wasn't calling ANYTHING against the other team until the end.  It ended in a tie.  I got tired just watching them.  
I caught the end of Ben's game.  His team is fantastic.  I don't think they've lost once this year.
Although we haven't got to see Max play yet, I did get to hang with him at Ben's game.  Man, I miss hanging out with him.  Why did he have to start school?
Evan was pure entertainment.  Maybe it was because I gave him a ton of m&m's.  He is too young to play yet, but that doesn't stop him from training:

And, of course, I have to add a picture of this kid:

Even though he isn't playing, he makes the rounds with me and he sure is fun to hang out with.

Next week we get to see Max and also, I get to see Addy cheer.  I can't wait for that!

My Town, my street.......

Ok, so working backwards from Halloween - we spent part of October break in San Diego, our home away from home.  Seriously, pulling up to Mission Beach feels like home.

We spent a day with our toes in the sand.  Of course I had to take pictures of my Joe.  What an awesome kid.  These photos reflect why I love hanging out with him so much.  He has so much personality and always makes me laugh.  In case you don't know it.  He is fun to hang with.  

Basking in the sun:

This one is my favorite:

We went for a long walk on the beach and collected tons of sand dollars.  Then we had a big discussion about whether or not sand dollars were alive, and if we were killing them by taking them out of the ocean.  We didn't want to risk it, so we put them all back.

Of course we stayed until sunset.
A friend of Brian's graciously let us stay in his condo.  The balcony overlooked the baseball stadium.  Brian loved that.
We HAD to stop at Seaport Village.  We love the shops.  Also not to be missed, the art.  This is fish art, or as I like to call it:  fart. 
I'm not sure if you are supposed to play on the art, but it didn't stop Joe and Brian.

Brian's friend also lent them the keys to the porsche.  They took it out for a spin.  
Sadly, this is where my camera battery died so I didn't get ANY pictures of Sea World.  Oh well.  We'll just have to go again soon.

And that's it for San Diego.

P.S.  JOE HAS UPDATED HIS BLOG AGAIN.  PLEASE STOP BY AND READ!!!

Peace out!

Halloween

Well, October flew by and I didn't post once.  It seems that I am less motivated to post when I'm not doing the "photo-a-day" thing.  I may go back to it, who knows.  No promises.  Anyway, October was action packed and instead of trying to fit it all into one post, I will split it up into a few.  Starting with Halloween and working backwards. 

So, Here is our Halloween in pictures:

Instead of doing the spook alley in the basement, the boys just decorated Grandma's front yard and walkway instead.

Addy liked "Leroy".  That's what we named the skeleton.  Josh liked him too.  He kept taking pieces of him and carrying him around.  

Of course we had to carve pumpkins.  Joe and I worked on both of them together.  He did most of the scarecrow and I did most of the other one, but we helped each other out.  
After much debating, Joe decided to be a Green Goblin.  We already had the mask, so it was easy.
Spidey vs. Green Goblin at mom's trunk or treat.  Of course Spidey won (Green Goblin was a good sport).  Spidey tried to unmask him to see who he really was, but of course he was the REAL Green Goblin, so he couldn't take off his mask.  We did hear him say as he left: "See ya dead guy."
Halloween night we went trick or treating with the Trezise family.  Green Goblin was a little too scary for Evan, that's why he's not pictured here.

Joe scared a few children (not on purpose, of course) along the way.  He even made one baby cry.  

One highlight of the evening is when we saw Slash pull up to someone's house on his motorcycle.  Joe payed his homage by bowing down to the rock god.  

We ended the evening at Great Grandmothers eating brownie bites and rice krispy treats.  Yum!

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween.

P.S. Joe has a new post also!  Check it out, and as always on Joe's blog - comments are expected!

Fall is here!

Fall is here and so is the peppermint ice cream.  

Yesterday was the first day of Fall (I always thought it was the 21st, but I was told by several people that is was yesterday, so what do I know?).   And you know what?  It actually felt a little fall-ish.  For Arizona, that is.  Now, I'm not saying that it was nice and cool and crisp as you imagine Fall might be, but it was also not as hot as an oven.  I did not feel like I was being slowly roasted when I walked outside.  In fact, there was a little bit of a breeze going all day.  It was a nice change.

Also, on a happy note - Brian went on an ice cream run last night and came home with peppermint ice cream - woo hoo!  I am still in mourning for Shamrock Farms Peppermint - why they stopped making it, I will never know.  But, the Breyers Peppermint was a fine substitute.   It was yum!

I didn't have any photo's, so I thought I'd add a little color to make it fun.  Aren't I thoughtful?

Lastly, how sad is it that I don't update for 2 weeks and when I do, it's about ice cream.  Now you all know where my priorities lie.