Christmas Fun!

I love Christmas Day! I wish that it lasted more than one day! Here are some of our Christmas day highlights...

Here are our stocking. I know, there are 7 stocking and only 4 people in our family. We had to have two extra for Grandma and Grandpa and then we have a special stocking for Baby Jesus. One of our traditions is to write down a "gift" (or rather a goal) that you are going to give baby Jesus over the next year. Now you see why we have 7. But of course, I have always felt the more the merrier!

And here are our two Christmas sweeties! Chap got up at 6am and was kind enough not to wake us until 7am. (What a good boy!)

Every Christmas we make donuts from scratch. We usually cut them into triangles like beignets (New Orleans Donuts). This is always great fun! (If you want a bit of history... My grandmother used to make donuts from scratch on Christmas morning. When I was growing up the tradition was adjusted a little and my Dad would go and pick up donuts from the donut shop Christmas Eve to eat on Christmas morning. Well, when Robby and I got married he decided that if we were going to follow tradition we had to do it right and make them from scratch! And so we do.)

Here are some of the chocolate covered ones. Yum! Yum! In our house we have to eat breakfast before we open the gifts under the tree.

Wrapping paper ripping fun!

Oh look, a book!

Robby has been extremely busy with school so he has had very little time to come up with a gift for me. I have really been wanting to go shopping for some new clothes, so he decided to give me money to spend. I was disappointed because I knew what I was getting for Christmas (I really like surprises), so Robby surprised me by folding my money into shirts and dresses. Very creative!

Little Robby and Jenna really loved the quillows that I made them. ("What's a quillow?" you ask. It is a blanket that has a pocket that it can be fold-up and stuffed into. When it's folded it is a pillow, when it is unfolded it is a quilt. Hence, it is called a quillow!)

Cousin Matthew made something special for Robby and Jenna. Thank you Matthew!

Jenna got some dress up clothes and decided that she had to try three of them on... at once!

More fun surprises!

Bonus pic: On the Sunday night before Christmas my parents and our family had a great time visiting the Temple Lights. We had a lot of fun! (I know it is hard to tell from this picture so I will mention that my dad is wearing a Santa hat that has a very thick fuzzy white brim.)

Gingerbread House

When the Christmas season rolled around, Little Robby asked me if we could make a gingerbread house. Since I love making fun memories for the kids we did just that...

Here's our little house.

We assembled this while my parents were visiting and they helped with the building and assisted the kids in the decorating. Jenna put the candies on this side of the roof. That was a perfect Jenna job. Little Robby did a lot of the other decorating.

Arizona snow... for real!!

No really, there was snow! You will just have to read along and find out...

Saturday morning we attended a Santa's breakfast at the recreation center...

We had yummy pancakes, sausages, and milk (chocolate milk for the boys).

Jenna got to visit with Santa and have her picture taken. (I guess Robby is too old for Santa now as he didn't even want to pose for a picture with Jenna and Santa.)

But then the surprise was playing in real snow! Okay, so it wasn't created naturally, but it was as close to snow that falls from the sky as the desert of Arizona can get.

Poor Jenna didn't have any mittens, but thankfully they got cups in their goody bags and the cups made it easier for the kids to shovel up the frigid white stuff.

I love these next two picture. Look carefully because Robby is sticking his tongue out at Chap.

Then Chap retaliates against Robby with a snowball. I was pretty lucky to catch this shot, the snow ball is in the air flying on its way to the target -- Robby!

Jenna has the look of, "What is this stuff?"

That grin says it all! Little Robby loves snow!

Christmas is here again

I wanted to share moment from one of our Christmas traditions with you. Each year on the Monday after Thanksgiving I set up the Christmas decorations and get out the Christmas tree. Then our Family Home Evening activity for that night is decorating the Christmas tree together. The kids really love this. It was especially fun setting up everything this year and seeing Jenna's eyes light up with each new surprise. Her favorite part was helping me set up the Christmas train that circles our tree.

Jenna enjoyed helping to hang the ornaments. (And now she loves to rearrange the ornaments on the tree over and over!)

She was so proud of herself!

Robby was a good big brother and helped her hang the ornaments.

Dad serves as the official "Hook Putter On-er." (Do like my title for him?!) Every year Dad takes this job while the kids and I place the ornaments on the tree. (You can tell he's concentrating on his job.)

I love Christmas time! It's my favorite time of year. The night we decorate the tree is one of my favorites. I get warm fuzzies being gathered with my family, listening to Christmas CDs, and decorating the tree together. What fun!

Karate Advancements

Once again we had karate testing a couple of weeks ago. This time we had the fun of having Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Logan, and cousin Matthew come to watch us do our stuff. Here are the highlight videos.

I am the lowest belt in the older group, so I get to go first at all of the tests. These two videos are of us doing our forms. The forms are choreographed movement that you have to memorize. There is a lot more to testing than the forms, but this is the only thing that we do by ourselves during testing.

And here we are with our new belts! (We had a hard time getting Robby to smile for this one. He was trying to have a Calvin and Hobbes moment where he makes a funny face right as Dad clicked the picture.)

What we did on our day off

So I have some blogging to catch up on! Between the Grand Canyon trip, my parents visiting this past weekend, and Christmas shopping I haven't had the time to sit down and do this. So here it goes...

This is from our day off around Veterans Day. Since we didn't want to sit around the house bored, we decided to take a day at the museum. The kids really enjoyed checking out the new exhibit called "Strange Matter." There were substances like this liquid iron mixture that when it was magnetized would be come more like a solid. Very interesting.

Jenna is finally old enough to enjoy pressing buttons and trying to interact a lot of the exhibits.

I thought this was a cute pic. We were waiting to see the IMAX film, and Robby took Jenna over to show her this aquarium of sea creatures. What a sweet big brother!

Here we are in the IMAX theater before the movie started. I thought Jenna would really get a kick out of it, but some of the images were a little too "larger than life" for her. She got scared with all of the loud sounds and some of the visual effects. So much so, that she crawled into my lap and shut everything out and went to sleep! I couldn't see how she could have possibly slept with the sound!

Later she recovered and enjoyed checking out the xylophone made of different materials so you could hear the differences in sound.

Working together!

And lastly, Robby loves this part of the museum. Here you can make sand barriers and see if you can direct a flow of water. I think he just likes the fact that it is almost like playing in mud!

Backpacking into the Grand Canyon

This past week we fulfilled one of Robby's long time desires to hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back. It was even better because we were able to make this trip with Robby's 3 brothers and 2 of his 4 sisters. Little Robby and I both joined the expedition and Jenna stayed behind (on account of being too young for this trip) at Aunt Andra's house with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle David and her three cousins.

This trip was a year in planning, and ended up being a great success. We all had a very memorable journey. I will share some of the highlights through these pictures (courtesy of my sister-in-law Andra who brought a camera to record our adventure).

Here are the boys, trekking poles in hand, standing at the top of the South Rim ready for the adventure to begin. (L to R - Robby, Logan, Forrest, Tommy, and in front Little Robby)

Okay, this isn't the best picture since the sun was very bright, but here are the girls excited to start the adventure. (L to R - Summer, Andra, and Sharon)

Here is our little adventurer near the beginning of the hike. Before we left, we were a little worried about how well he would be able to keep up with the adults on the hike, but instead he was just about always right behind the leader wishing he could blaze the trail.

Along the way we were careful to stay hydrated.

As we neared the last couple miles of the seven mile hike to the bottom, we were glad to see this view of the river and part of the campground because it meant we were close.

This was a view of the river taken from the black suspension bridge near Bright Angel Campground. Beautiful!

Here Robby demonstrates how we all felt after that first day of hiking - Dead!

Andra and I looked like twinkies during much of the trip because we shopped together at REI before the trip. When we bought the shirts Andra's husband convinced us both to buy the same color shirt (to be honest there was a limited selection of colors and none of the other choices were very flattering on either of us.)

Also, this picture was taken in front of the canteen at Phantom Ranch. I think what saved me was the fact that Andra was able to reserve dorm room beds for the three girls during both nights of our stay at the bottom of the canyon. I was so sore the next morning I could hardly walk, and I think it would have been worse if I had slept in a sleeping bag on the cold hard ground.

Here are the boys' accommodations at the Bright Angel Campground.

On our day of rest at the bottom of the canyon, Andra and I walked over to the Boat Beach together. While there she captured my special moment touching the water of the Colorado River. This is my proof that I really was at the bottom of the Grand Canyon!

Also during that day, Andra and I had to doctor some massive blisters that Robby developed on his heels during the hike down. Everyone had to stand around and watch because they had never seen blisters so large! (I will spare you from seeing the actual blisters themselves.)

This is Robby's sister Summer loading up for the two day hike back to the top. What a cutie!

I love this shot! This is seven of us on the trail hiking back to the top (Robby was taking the picture.)

Robby and I enjoy a breather break together along the trail.

After a 2 day and total of 9.8 mile hike we made it to the top! Here are the six brothers and sisters who went (L to R, in order of youngest to oldest - Logan, Summer, Forrest, Tommy, Andra, and Robby -- Robby has two more sisters who couldn't make it.) It felt like we had just finished a marathon (not that I've ever run a marathon, but it's like completing something incredibly momentous.) I realize people have accomplished much greater things, but for me this was big! We did get a big group picture, but it was on one of the brother's camera, so I will have to post it later.

A trip to the railroad park

The Families Supporting Adoption organization that we are apart of had a fun picnic at a railroad park close to our house. We had never been there before, and afterwards I wished I had gone sooner. The day was so nice. We are in November now, and we have finally gotten to the weather that won't make you sweat the first two minutes you are outside.

Not to long after we arrived, we had a surprise. Robby's best friend was also at the park celebrating a birthday of a cousin. Robby thought that was great, and they went back and forth between the two parties eating food in both places.

Jenna enjoyed running and playing on the playground...

and sliding down the slide.

But, her favorite part was riding on the carousel. "I want to ride the Horseys!" she would say.

Ahhh, the life of a little girl.

The main attraction at this park is the scale model of a steam engine train that people can ride. In fact, it even has a cattle car, which is where Robby and Jenna insisted on riding. (I opted for a gondola seat - open topped box car.)

Here we are coming into the station.

"Bye, bye Horseys!"