Early Christmas

We started off Christmas Day extra early this year. This is an unusual year for us. We are heading to Utah for almost a month for lots of wonderful reasons: Jake has taken only a couple of days off this year, so its a 'use it or lose it kind of thing', its our last Christmas with my parents for 3 years (they have been called as Mission Presidents) and my baby brothers leaves on his mission on January 4th with his farewell being December 18!  It's gonna be crazy and lots of fun!

 We decided to have OUR little family Christmas before we leave this week. We didn't want to haul all the gift to Utah and also wanted the kids to be able to play with their new things, and actually have time to enjoy them. We only gave them gifts from us, and my grandparents sent gifts, so that is what they opened. We then had a fabulous traditional breakfast and spent the morning and afternoon playing with our new things. They can't wait till Santa comes and visits them in Utah!
(Please ignore our frightful tree! It has fallen over a few times, once on Macy.... it isn't very sturdy and lost most of the ordainments!)

 

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Later that evening we headed up to my absolute favorite town in Arizona, Carefree. Every year they do a light parade and fireworks, they also have real snow, bounce houses, santa and other fun festive things. We did this last year and were hopeful we were still in town for it this year--it just happened to be a week earlier this year!
We enjoyed the parade, fireworks and a fabulous dinner at our favorite BBQ restaurant. There was live music and Maggie danced for the whole restaurant! It was such a fun night. One of my favorite December traditions we have.

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Sunday night we headed to the Mesa Temple. Oh, how we love the beautiful colorful lights there--and the mild weather!  We walked around and enjoyed the evening. They had a beautiful orchestra and choir singing on the lawn. It was a beautiful night. The kids picked out their favorite lights and asked questions about the nativity. We love that the night gave us another amazing opportunity to teach our children about Jesus Christ and temples. Jake and I couldn't help but feel our hearts swell with gratitude to members of such a wonderful Church and to have a burning testimony of our Savior and forever families. We are truly blessed and grateful.

Merry Christmas!

November

November!

We have a tradition to send Santa our wish list for Christmas. The kids LOVE this tradition. Kaiden was able to write most of his list this year. 

Macy has had a rough month. The first of the month she cut her two bottom teeth, and the middle and end of the month she cut 4 on top. She isn't a great teether, which means long nights for us.

Macy pulls herself up on everything!

Maggie made a life size little pilgram girl at preschool, so we put it on the wall, and she went to town adding to it. 

 It finally feels like fall in AZ (crisp cool nights/days) and fall decor!

She loves her toys!

Kaid and Maggs love to play with Macy....they get very creative!

Macy is like a little fish.... She loves a nice and relaxing bath!

We headed to St. George and Centerville for Thanksgiving this year. The kids were ready to go, just waiting for Dada to pull up.

Jake's sister Ashley has a beautiful home in St. George where we all gathered for a fun and yummy Thanksgiving Dinner.

Samuelson grandkids.

Jake's brother, Sam and his family.

Playing with Papa.

After dinner we headed to Centerville. When we got there Scotty told us where he was going on his mission (he opened the call the morning before with my parents, but waited for us to get there the next day to tell the family!) He is going to Chile! Roncagua, and he leaved January 4th! We are SOOOO excited for him. 

My family all headed to the temple for sealing on Friday....it was wonderful! We had a great weekend.

On Sunday Kelli's sweet little baby boy was blessed. It was a fabulous day! 

Elder Craven!

 Right after the blessing and lunch we headed to Vegas for the night.

 We walked around and spent a fun day and night in Vegas, then headed home, (and I might have turned a year older sometime during that weekend....)

Kaiden had his first chior and violin concert. It was cute! He did a great job.
(Sorry the pictures are so bad)

December 2, we headed to pick out our tree for the year.

 We then came home and decorated it, the kids had a great time and did it all by themselves this year. 

Maggie's cluster.

The kids found a box and put Macy in it...she thought is was so funny!

It was a great November and will be a fun and exciting December....heading back to Utah for Christmas and New Years and for Scotty's mission festivities!

My parents were called to be Mission Presidents in October (they don't know where yet, but we do know they leave the end of June for 3 years) so we are taking every opportunity to be with them!