Christmas 2010

Sledding

Not a lot of snow the morning we went sledding - but fine for us Arizonans! You could have heard my scream a mile a way as I went down on the tube with Ashley - I think we were maxing 5 miles an hour. It was fun to watch Ty take the kids down, and for us to make a train with all five of us on two sleds and the tube. Classic winter fun.

More Trip Pics

On our way... enjoying the family Christmas present - a TV in the van!
Thanks for the cute shirt auntie DeeDee! Like the pants I found to go with?! They even have bunny paw feet ;)
Waiting in line with ice-cream cones to see Santa - requests: A Tom and Jerry Christmas movie for Jake, a leapster explorer or mobigo for Ash and spy gear and magic stuff for Luke.
At chuck-e-cheeses - the cousin tradition!
Movie star pose
Claire (7 wks) and Sydney (3 mths)
Todd and Nat's and our kids together
At dad's gravesite
The deer blocking grandma's driveway!

Great-grandma Goesch
Visiting BYU - go COUGS!
Claire just starting to smile and coo at 7 weeks old. Precious.

An early Christmas Gift

I bought this shirt for Claire a few weeks ago! It seemed very appropriate at the time. HOWEVER, I am happy to say that our little one is sleeping so well since we got here to Utah! Daddy took over the bedtime routine, swaddles her, cuddles her til she's good and gone then tucks her into her own bed each night and she is sleeping so much better now (than she was with us)!

What a wonderful Christmas gift from our little girl! ;)

Family Dinner/ Gift Exchange

The night after we got here everyone came over for dinner and our girls/guys and cousins gift exchanges. Todd and Natalie are now off to Hawaii, Zach and Katie are at a cabin at Sundance with her family and Ali and Blake are home in Seattle awaiting the arrival of their little one within the week - so it was good that we got as many people together as possible that first night. Grandma Wells was here, too!

Nanna made a wonderful meal. She pulled out all the stops with matching jammies for all the grandkids. For the first time us adult girls did a favorite things exchange, which we all loved. The boys did their regualar name-drawn exchange. It was nice and nothing got too chaotic - not easy when there are so many excited people in one house.

It was a great kick-off to a great week.

We have arrived!

We arrived in Utah!! It was all I could do to get this family loaded up and on our way to Nana and Popi's - but with family teamwork and determination we did it!

Thanks to Amazon.com all of Santa's shipments have already made it! Boxes and boxes sit in the basement just needing to be wrapped. Wonderful!

Shauna's home is beautiful. Covered in green garland and lights, candles and cookies.. it is always good to be here. The fire is glowing, snow flurries are blowing outside. I think we just might have a white christmas this year!

So, I'm glad we came - newborn and all. NOW it's really beginning to look and feel a lot like Christmas! :)

Ty's Triathlon

Saturday Tyler did the Anthem Triathlon. It was so much fun to go up and support him and he did really great! It was a 400 meter swim (16 laps), 12 mile bike ride and 3 mile run (with a lot more hills than we are used to here in Queen Creek!) He and his buddies from work signed up several weeks ago together and I thought it was a great idea. I want to participate next December with Ty, Ali and Blake. That would be awesome for the brothers and us sisters to do together. And good motivation to get fit again, post babies!

Anyway, I took a lot of pictures because I was so proud of him.













Afterward we stopped off at the Anthem outlets which were right there to do some shopping and saw the tallest Christmas tree in the nation! It was something to behold! I would love to take the kids back sometime to see it lit up at night. But isn't this a classic picture - Arizona in December - palm trees and Christmas trees together.