More from Christmas

Here are some more Christmas memories.
We played lots of games.

Gracin and Uncle Zak
Rhylan and Uncle Zak.

Tiff made us these DELICIOUS Christmas day treats!! (In her new apron)





Rhylan and Grammy Sue making cookies.
One day we went Wii bowling. My mom was first!!
Here was the cheering section. Every time someone hit a pin (or didn't) Gracin would throw up his hands and cheer!! It was so funny.

Park day way back in December

During Christmas bread we went to the park with Tiff and Mauricio. They weather was so nice, I think the kids really liked getting out of the condo! I've taken my kids back there since then, it is a really fun park. Lost of things to make kids dizzy!

Christmas Morning 2011

We moved from Phoenix to St George December 23rd. We actually unloaded the moving truck into our apartment on Chrismas Eve. So thankful for family who helped with so much. Especially Zak--He practically unloaded our entire apartment while waiting for my dad and Riley to get the moving truck. Then he also drove Riley's car all alone up to St George. He's the man. Also thankful that they sacrificed their Christmas eve to help us:) But we had it all planned out. After moving the boxes we headed back to our condo/timeshare and spent a whole week with the entire family. It was perfect.

Christmas Eve we let the kids open one present. It was their matching pj's. Since I have a boy and a girl, matching clothes are sometimes hard to come by. I decided to make them these instead. They thought they were great and put them on right away, and to my delight they fit:) Impossible to get a good picture of them together.
Christmas morning we all woke up before the sun. It was so fun to see the kids faces light up when they saw the glowing tree with all the present which had been hidden until then. Rhylan was the oldest kid, she really knew what was going on and was so EXCITED to see that Santa had come, and had taken a bite of the doughnut she left for him!!! The boys didn't really understand the whole Santa thing.

She got exactly what she asked Santa for, a Little Pet Shop Tree house. That seemed to be the toy of the day. The boys all wanted to play with it as well.
Gracin really loves trains right now, he go 2 wooden sets for Christmas, one was from Santa. They also got candy in their stockings.

One memory I want to remember: Rhylan had asked to go Christmas shopping for Riley and Gracin with her own money. She told me exactly what she wanted to get them before we even went to the store. She got Gracin a match box car (actually a motorcycle) and Riley a movie. I found "Get Smart" in the $5 bin. She was so excited for them to open their presents, she even wrapped them all by herself and made the tags too. She loved giving on Christmas just as much as she loved getting.



Rhylan has been a little jealous of my robe lately and asked for one for Christmas. I made her this super soft whale robe. It was a big hit.
A funny story. Jude got a sensory table filled with rocks and tractors to play. Rhylan went around and saw all that Santa brought. She paused at the rock table pretty confused and said "Rocks???!! Grammy, did you ask Santa for a bunch of rocks?!"

The rest of the morning we opened presents, played, had a wonderful breakfast, and got ready for church at 1:00. It was a perfect day. After church, we had a delicious turkey dinner and a special dessert Tiffany made.

Phyllobates Vittatus

For my birthday, I was able to buy something I have always wanted.... Poison Dart Frogs!! I have been researching Poison Dart Frogs for about 4 years now. A local breeder here in the valley had about 50 frogs to sell. He needed to find homes for them. So I was in luck at a very good price :) I was able to pick two of them up today after work at the breeder's house. It was a VERY hard day to stay focused seeing patients all day today. I was pretty excited to get them today. Of course Rhylan and Gracin were pretty excited too. This a thumbnail species of frog that is called Phyllobates Vittatus from the rainforests of Costa Rica. They are about the size of my baby fingernail.

Thanksgiving, a month late

We headed to my parents house for a week for Thanksgiving. I was trying to give Riley more study time at home before his big board exam the next week. He of course joined us for Thanksgiving and the day after. Here is Rhylan at the feast.

Half the table.
The other side. We spent Thanksgiving with my family, my nana, and my aunt Lori and her family.


The rest of the week we just had fun! Not much pictures to show for it but here are a few.
We made some ornaments with pine cones.

I love this little face!!!!

Southmountain Park

The weekend before we moved my parents made one last trip down to visit (and do some Christmas shopping.) On that Saturday I wanted to take them to a few of our favorite places we found while we lived there. First we went to Fire House Subs. We first discovered this place in Southaven Mississippi. It is by far the BEST sub place I have ever been. We were so excited when we found one in Chandler the last month we lived there!!! My parents agreed... the BEST.

Then we headed to Southmountain Park in Phoenix. We found this place one day looking for adventure. I particularly took interest because it was a great place to take pictures. All the photo shoots I took while I lived in Phoenix were taken at this place. (I finally put up a bunch of my recent shoots up on my photo blog.) We spent some time just climing around. My parents and my family love the outdoors, so this was just a perfect outing before they had to head home. The weather was so beautiful. My parents had come from snowy weather so they were really enjoying the perfect climate.






I heard "Hey mom take my picture!" I turned around and saw this: