Christmas Memories 2016

Christmas Day!  A day to celebrate Christ's birth!  We try to keep Christ in Christmas by focusing on helping others, reading Christmas stories of giving and cheer every night in December, giving gifts related to the gifts the Wise men gave the Savior and surrounding our self with family!

Kids on Christmas morning!

Stocking time!

Celebrating Christmas with Nanny and Poppa and Rachel and her family!

The Nelson Family Christmas Day 2015

The joy of opening a gift!

Spy stuff for Shayla! The kids asked for Spy stuff, Skylanders and Legos.  We don't overwhelm them with gifts as they get 3 main gifts but they did get Skylander and Lego Dimensions and Spy stuff too!  They were happy. 

The kids participate in a Secret Santa at their school where people donate gifts and the kids shop for their family member - everything is $1 - and the money raised from selling the gifts goes to a Charity!  It is a great project for all!  Mitchell got Jon a "Bacon Cookbook"

We had Christmas Dinner at Rachel's House - cousin love!

Megan and her family came to visit the week after Christmas so we got to spend more time with our Abbott cousins too!  The kids always love going in the river bed. 

My beautiful sister!

The kids having fun with the jeep and Skateboard

Fun times!

And that ends another Christmas season!  My favorite part of the season is getting to spend time with family!  I am so blessed to have a wonderful family and a wonderful family I married into! I am grateful that our Heavenly Father gave us the gift of eternal life and forever families! That's the best gift I could ever hope for!

Christmas Vacation Arizona Trip 2015

One of the things we make a priority in our family is traveling and seeing more of God's creations and spending quality time together with our family!  We especially love to go to National Parks or National Monuments. This Christmas break, we headed to Arizona for a short pre-Christmas adventure (note to self: Don't go on vacation the day school gets out and week before Christmas again!  A bit much for planning!).  We didn't want to drive too far and had a free 2 day lodging for us, so we went to Arizona to stay in Phoenix area, Sedona and Flagstaff.  It was a wonderful trip but we just needed more time in each place!

Road trip time! 

In Phoenix we found an outdoor ice rink with real ice this time! It was fun and Mitchell did sooo much better than last time and last year! 

We also went to the Children's Museum in Phoenix and enjoyed walking around and popped into the Wells Fargo museum too for fun! Then we headed to Mesa to see the wonderful Mesa Temple Christmas display!  They had a beautiful presentation and a display of nativities from around the world.  In a parking lot across the street from the Temple they had food trucks so we had dinner there!  It was a perfect night and a wonderful way to get in the Christmas spirit!

The Mesa Temple is beautiful and holds a special place in our lives to as my parents were married there!

While looking at things to do in the area I discovered the Out of Africa Wildlife park which is a small safari like type park on the way to Sedona! I did not know it existed but it is very cool! It was really neat and the kids got to feed Tigers and take a safari and be in the midst of giraffes, camels, zebras and many other animals!

The three felines...

See Giraffe in background?

We got to feed the giraffes!

This guy kept stocking his head in our caravan for more!

Our next stop was Montezumas Castle - a national monument. 

And then Tuzigoot National Monument

The kids earned Junior Ranger badges at each place to add to their collection!

Then the next day we were in Sedona!  I was hoping to see a sunset or sunrise as that is one of the most popular, most gorgeous things to see in Sedona, but it was very cool, cloudy and drizzly the whole time so not a lot of views, but it was still beautiful and we did get to enjoy some beautiful outdoor time and hiking!  The kids loved scrambling on the rocks at the Red Rock hike!

The last day we had a short half day at Flagstaff and got to explore town a a bit and have a bit of snow play! We definitely need more time in Flagstaff  and Sedona and hope to come back soon!

The we headed home back to celebrate Christmas with family! It was a great trip! Here are some more photos of the whole trip:

Christmas Eve #1 and #2

We had two Christmas eves this year!  One the week before to celebrate with Grandma Betty and one on the actual day to celebrate with Grandpapa too! 

First we stopped at Grandpa's sister houses Aunt Lois to say Merry Christmas 

The over to Grandma Bettys to celebrate Christmas with her!

The sisters who were there!

The Hulihan Siblings

Christmas Eve #2 - we got to celebrate at Tommy and Christine's with everyone!

One of the cute babies there - Emeric! Just turned one!

David practicing holding two babies at once - Emeric and Sabine - preparing for the TWINS he and Amber will be having in 2016!  Everyone was so excited as the announced it in person with a ultrasound photo of two babies wearing Santa hats! 

Here it is!

The Christmas Eve Crew!

A special family photo with Grandpapa!

It has been years since we had our Grandpapa with us for Christmas, but all growing up it was never Christmas without him, so it was a nice to have him visiting this year from Idaho and it felt like a real Christmas eve! 

Here is a link to more photos from these days!

Holiday Fun 2015

The month of November and December are full of lots of holiday fun - many of our activities are family or friend traditions we try to do every year, and others are spur of the moment outings or family activities!  Here are a few of our favorite things we did this holiday season!

I kicked off the holiday season with my moms group - Pre Thanksgiving Feast!  We have been doing this feast for at least 6 years!  We get together a week or so before Thanksgiving to sample out favorite Thanksgiving recipes to share with our friends! Always a fun night we always look forward to!

We had a low key Thanksgiving with Jons family with a nice meal and taking the kids to the movies to see "The Good Dinosaur"

Time to decorate the tree!

Time for Dixie... 

and Herbie to visit... 

Shayla had her holiday party Cotillion so the kids both got dressed up for the evening! They always invite the siblings on to the dance floor too!  

It was a beautiful and fun night for all!

We met up with Brooke and Brayden to help celebrate Braydens birthday at the Four Season holiday adventure!

We got to meet Santa!

Smile Santa!

And do faux ice skating!  It was so hard compared to real ice skating but the kids still enjoyed it!

We decorated Gingerbread houses!  I had put "Decorate Gingerbread houses" in the advent calendar on a Sunday and didn't realize it was there and had not bought a premade kit yet, so guess who made homemade Gingerbread houses from scratch!  It was actually a lot easier than I thought so I think we may have started a new tradition! I always save Halloween candy to decorate with so I had plenty of that laying around!

And we had fun checking out the neighborhood Christmas lights!

We had a fun Girl Scout holiday party and secret Santa exchange!

The kids did a great job at their school holiday performance!

All dressed up for the School performance. 

My holiday cuties!

I went to a holiday part y for one of Jons client - the theme was the Speakeasy so we had fun dressing up a bit!

The did a Magic Mountain date with Amy's family! (Only lost one kid - Mitchell - when after this photo he went behind the Christmas tree while the rest of us went the other direction!) 

We dressed up for our Ward Christmas party "Night in Bethlehem" and it was a beautiful evening! 

Entering Bethlehem and paying our taxes. 

What a wonderful night! 

My bestie Heather had her annual ladies social - this year the theme was Barbies!  

I had fun as workout Barbie!

And Heather was a Ken doll!  It was too fun!

We went to Jon's Christmas work party too! They were celebrating 20 years in business!

It was a great month full of lots of time spent with family and friends!