Easter 2016

Easter this year was a lot of fun!  This was the first year that the kids at least sort of understood what was going on.  We bought a book about the real Easter story (from the Bible, not about the bunny) that helped them understand at least a bit of what the season is all about.  I put up a few simple decorations and we did a few Easter activities like dying Easter eggs and painting some Easter crosses.  We did Easter eggs two ways, with the traditional dye kit from the store and then we tried the whipped cream method which was a lot of fun!  I think in the future that we will just go with the whipped cream technique because it made such beautiful eggs and I didn't have to worry about my little mess makers putting it in their mouths.

On Easter, we did an egg hunt that was pretty darn funny.  Grayson kept running to the eggs (they had fruit snacks and jelly beans in most of them with a few reese's thrown in) and trying to take the candy out of each one as he went.  He didn't seem to understand the concept of putting the eggs in the basket and checking out his candy at the end.  Clare just tried to pick up as many eggs as she could at once.  Her max was three at a time but she sure tried to get more!  The kids also had Easter baskets with a few extra treats in them.  I tried to keep things simple and keep the focus on Christ instead of getting lots of presents but I'm sure the candy was their favorite part at this age.

After our egg hunt, we got ready for church and then had a lovely service at Scottsdale Bible Church.  I am so grateful that we have found a good church that we love out here!  The kids did another little egg hunt in their classes and Grayson told us a million times that he couldn't pick up the pink eggs, just the other colors :)

After church, we went to Julian's parents house for a nice Easter lunch and family time.  It's so fun to be able to spend holidays with family now that we are back in Phoenix!  The kids had a great time with their grandparents :)

Payson Vacation

To celebrate Julian's 30th birthday this year, I decided to surprise him with a weekend getaway to Payson to enjoy the mountains and a change of scenery from Phoenix.  I wanted to do something fun as a family and I knew that Julian wouldn't want a party so a nice cabin in the woods sounded perfect. We drove up to Payson (about an hour and a half away) and we celebrated with some delicious Nothing Bundt Cake bundlettes (basically cupcakes).  The kids were huge moochers while Julian was trying to enjoy his dessert :)

The next day we decided to go to the Tonto Natural Bridge, which is a beautiful naturally formed travertine bridge that you can hike down to.  The hike was beautiful though it was pretty steep, which wasn't the easiest with Clare strapped to my back and Grayson riding on Julian's shoulders.  Grayson is obsessed with maps so he spent a lot of time trying to be our little navigator.  We kept asking him to tell us what he saw and asking if he saw the trees, rocks, etc.  His response was to keep his nose in the map and talk about the compass :)

Once we got to the bottom and he could safely run around, he finally started paying attention to his surroundings.  He was trying to skip rocks, run across a bridge, check out the stream, and really just run everywhere.

Clare fell asleep in the Ergo on our hike back up.  It was really cool to see such a beautiful natural structure!

We also spent time near the stream that was across from the house and it was really cute to watch Grayson and Julian exploring together!  I absolutely love watching my boys bond!  Clare really wanted to chase them but with the uneven, rocky terrain, she was struggling to keep up.  We had such a nice relaxing trip and we were so happy to be able to celebrate a great husband and father!

A White Christmas

We had so much fun celebrating Christmas this year!  As soon as we returned from our Thanksgiving trip to California, I got started decorating the house with some "help" from my two little ones.  Grayson was so excited about everything that I took out.  He really enjoyed trying to put the ornaments on the tree and also playing with the plastic manger that I bought for him last year.  We seem to have misplaced Joseph but he mostly wanted baby Jesus and the animals so he didn't mind.  Clare also tried to help put ornaments up and then she tore apart a pop up book about the Christmas story.  I was actually pleasantly surprised to find that I still had ornaments on the bottom of the tree when it was time to take it down :)

We spent the month making sugar cookies, decorating gingerbread houses, seeing lights, visiting Santa, and watching Christmas movies.  I love Christmas and I want our kids to love it just as much but I don't want to get so caught up in making it magical that we forget to focus on the birth of Jesus and what that means for us.  We tried to do a nice mix of Santa and Christmas trees vs the birth of Jesus and helping others.

Two days before Christmas we loaded up the truck (I love having a giant truck for road trips so much!) and drove up to Utah to spend the holiday with my family.  We got lucky and drove up between snow storms so the roads were clear for us but there was a ton of snow for us to enjoy while we were there.  Grayson loved playing in the snow and didn't really seem bothered by the cold.  We took him sledding, he made snow angels and we went tubing and he enjoyed all of it.  Clare, on the other hand, did not enjoy the cold at all!  We took her tubing and she pretty much cried the whole time.  She liked looking at the snow from inside but she had no interest in being out in it.  Next time we will just leave her home with Grandma and Grandpa :)

On Christmas Eve, we had a big nice prime rib dinner that was delicious!  My grandma came and spent Christmas with us which was so much fun!  We were only missing my sister Chelsey who is currently in South Korea.  Grayson had been so excited to be at Grandma and Grandpa's house that he didn't take a nap that day which combined with a late night the night before ended in him literally falling asleep while eating a roll at the dinner table.  It was super cute and gave us all a good laugh.

Clare was completely obsessed with my mom (Clare would only go to her and wouldn't even come to me if my mom was nearby) so I got to use both hands to eat a full meal which was a nice change :)  After dinner, we put Clare to bed and then the rest of us watched Christmas Vacation which is definitely my favorite Christmas movie!

On Christmas day, we woke up to a ton of new snow and it kept snowing for most of the day.  I really wanted a white Christmas so it was perfect!  We all gathered around the tree and took turns opening presents.  I should say that we took turns for about two rounds and then my kids sort of took over the present opening process.  They had a lot more presents than everyone else and they were just so darling opening things.  I absolutely love seeing the joy on my kids faces at these ages as they open their presents!  They are still young enough to be excited about even the smallest presents and it is so darn cute!

We had a wonderful relaxing Christmas and I am so grateful that we were able to spend it with my family!  My parents and siblings were great with the kids and it was also a lot of fun to see my kids make memories with my Grandma.  I am so grateful to come from such a close knit family!