Night Before Christmas

It's a good thing that Grandma and Grandpa's house comes equipped with fun things for the boys to do! Today Grandma got out the Play-Doh for the boys. They had a great time playing wth the dough and all the cookie cutters, rollers, and knives.

We have playdoh at home too, but it is too much of a hassle to bring it. So it's a good thing that Grandma has some for them to play with on our extended visits.

Turns out the playdoh was just practice for what we were going to do later! Auntie Em saved some gingerbread dough for the boys to make cookies for Santa!

They got to help roll out the dough and pick which cookie cutters they wanted to use.

Amelia didn't help, but she thought the whole thing was interesting! What a happy, cheerful girl. She is definitely like the sunshine that lights up the room.

Ephraim even got a turn making cookies. He had a lot of run using the rolling pin and helping push the cookie cutters into the dough.

Isn't Auntie Em great to help the boys make cookies? She is awesome!

We used up all the dough and there were plenty of cookies for Santa that night. The boys were very excited for Christmas to come!

One funny story about this Christmas has to do with Ephraim's present. At the last minute he decided that he wanted some batman playset instead of the Siddley the Spy Jet from the Cars 2 Movie that he had been asking to get for months! So of course I had to deter him. I told him that the playset was too big and that I told Santa that it would not fit very well in our house. Of course that made Jacob ask me how I told Santa not to bring it. My immediate answer was that I sent him an email. So when the boys were asked if they wanted to write letters to leave for Santa, they said they didn't need to because Mommy already emailed him! Haha! What smart boys.

Fun with Cars

Grandpa Devereaux has the coolest toys! Today the boys got to go to the church and use his remote control cars in the gym. Auntie Em's presence was requested, but not mine! So I worked on my projects while Amelia napped and the boys had a great time!

Emily said her favorite part was how Jacob kept chasing his car around the gym. It's probably because the little cars we have only work if you are in close range. Apparently Ephraim did a bit better driving this year than he did last year!

I got a lot done and had a good day with Amelia. Did I mention that she has just about got the crawling thing down?! She had figured out how to go from her bum to her belly already! See:

Ha-ha, Mommy! You can't sit me on the ground and expect me to stay there anymore!

Winterhaven

This year while on vacation I brought a pretty big project to work on. I was making a turtle quilt for Ephraim to match the one I made for Jacob. So Emily and I worked on that quite a bit... when she wasn't helping Grandma entertain the boys for me! I will have to take a picture of the finished quilts soon!

Last year one of the things that we really wanted to do in Tucson was go see Winterhaven. It is a neighborhood that goes all out on lights during Christmas. Last year we tried to go on a drive-through day because I was pregnant and we ended up waiting in the line of cars so long that we just gave up! This year we left Amelia with Daddy and I went with the boys and Grandma and Emily.

It was a windy night, so we were all actually wearing our jackets, hats and mittens. It actually wasn't that bad, and we enjoyed seeing all the lights. Here are some of my favorites:

For Christmas I got a bokeh kit, so I had fun playing around with it while looking at the Christmas lights.

There were lots of houses that were so decorated it was crazy, like this gingerbread house.

I really liked this house with its neon lights. Pretty cool.

It was amazing how many lights there were all over the place.

The boys were about ready to be done, when we found the house with the fountain. It was amazing! They had lights and a fountain that was synchronized to the music playing over some speakers. It was so fun to watch that Ephraim kept asking if we could stay for one more song.

I was enjoying taking bokeh pictures of the large Christmas tree they had in their yard as well.

We all had a great time looking at the fun Christmas lights, whether we were looking at them clearly:

Or a bit blurry :o).

When we got back home we found out that Amelia cried nearly the entire time I was gone before falling asleep. She has become something of a Mommy's girl and I think she was still getting used to being somewhere new. She woke up and was very happy to see me. We got the boys in bed and Amelia fell asleep on me, which happened quite a few times while we were on vacation. So I had Emily take a picture of me with my cute baby girl.

New Games, New Faces, New Fun

Our first day in Tucson we mostly spent hanging around the Devereaux's. The boys were happy to be out of the van and have someone to play with them!

Amelia was getting acclimated to her new surroundings. She spent the night with us at Grandpa Sabey's house and then spent the day with us at the Devereaux's. She didn't seem to mind Grandma and Grandpa though!

Amelia is at the age where she is not so sure about people she does not know, but she seemed o.k. with Grandpa, Grandma, and Auntie Em.

We mostly hung around, but Joe did spend some time with his Dad up on the roof. They were patching the roof on the other house, and I climbed up a ladder to take a look. Did you know that most roofs in Tucson are white? Makes sense!

The boys also got to take a look at Grandpa's boat. A trip to the lake was in the works, so we needed to check out the boat and make sure it was operational. The boys were excited to get in the boat, and it wasn't even in the water!

We enjoyed the nice warm weather in Tucson. We did not even pack coats, and as you can see the boys were running around in T-shirts! Nice, huh?

Napping to Tucson

We finally got everything packed up and very early on the 20th (we are talking 3 a.m.!) we left Pleasant Grove, headed for Tucson.

Luckily the kids did really well sleeping in the car this time. Everyone was out in no time. I even slept in the car a little, which is unusual. But I was fighting a cold and not feeling really great. Joe and I switched off every couple of hours while it was dark. Then we stopped in St. George for breakfast just as the kids were waking up.

The drive went smoothly, which was awesome. Usually we have to fight some snowy weather, but this year the roads were bare and the skies were clear! It was a nice change from the usual, and probably why we all slept so well in the car.

After breakfast the kids even took a few more naps. Here is Ephraim, sleeping in his car seat. Isn't he so cute with his mouth wide open?

He is even cute when he is waking up. This picture cracked me up! You can tell that he is half awake because only one eye is open!

We stopped in Kingman for lunch, and I think from the following pictures you can tell where we went.

Yep! Burger King. The boys were excited to get out of the van and play for a minute. I think Amelia was pretty happy to be out of her seat as well! I can't say I blame her!

The kids did really well in the van all day. They got to watch some movies on the DVD players and I was impressed with how well Amelia did in her carseat all day. Thankfully, there were plenty of great naps, and I had nothing better to do than take pictures of my cute sleeping kiddos.

We finally arrived in Tucson before 5 p.m. which was nice because the kids had time to settle down before bedtime. We were thankful for an uneventful drive!

Amelia at 9 months

I actually got Amelia's nine month pictures taken before we headed for Tucson for Christmas! I was pretty proud of myself. I even put her in pigtails, since she has enough hair! Isn't she a cutie?

I just love her smile!

I did not have a hard time at all getting her to sit up on the couch and smile, the hard part was keeping her on the couch! She kept wanting to lean forward and look over the edge!

It was also more difficult to get a picture with her 9 months sign, as she really just wanted to reach over and grab it. I ended up distracting her while Jacob put the sign down for me. Then I set her down next to it. I managed to get a couple of nice ones.

I also took a couple of pictures of her with just the pigtails and no flowers.

I love this next one because you can just see her little teeth!

She has such a great little smile! We love this girl!

Amelia is so curious and fun! Right now she is really trying to crawl. She mostly drags herself around on her belly (army crawling). She loves cords, shoelaces, and chewing on everything she finds. She is a bit of a Mommy's girl and also loves to grab any jewelry that mommy is wearing.

Amelia is very good natured and loves to be with her family. She loves her brothers and enjoys giving them good night hugs. She always has a big smile for Daddy and loves to play with him.

We are so happy to have Amelia in our family!