A Glimpse of December

Life has been crazy! Here are a few pictures from December!

The day after Thanksgiving we put up Jon's Nutcracker collection. The girls love it and have their favorite nutcrackers. I really wanted to get them up right away, so it would feel like Christmas (especially since we decided to move the weekend after Christmas and had to pack up all of our decorations the day after). We had lots of fun decorating and getting into the holiday spirit!The girls also helped put up our window stickers. They each enjoyed decorating their own window. And Savannah helped Jon put up our tree. I think that next year we'll have a real tree! Yay! Jon and the girls made a Gingerbread House a few days later. The girls love their "Ginger Man House!" Spencer has been getting dressed up for church in his white shirt and tie. Got to start that habit young right? I just think he looks totally cute. Savannah got to go to a Primary Activity Day. We did a Drive-In movie; where we showed a slide show of the pictures of the kids through-out the year. Savannah made her little car that she got to sit in during the "movie." We also went caroling with some friends. We made little goody bags for the people that we sang to. The girls loved it! Savannah loved going to sing to her primary teachers and giving them a treat! The girls also had fun eating their "Ginger Man" peeps. They (or maybe just Savannah) loved them, but they both enjoyed biting their heads off first! Savannah's preschool had their annual Christmas concert. I dressed all the kiddos in red just for the occasion and managed to get one good shot of them. I thought that Savannah looked beautiful in her red "Santa" dress that she picked out herself. We were so proud of her too for sitting on Santa's lap. Too bad she couldn't remember what to tell him. I guess that it's a good thing that she wrote him a letter. The weekend before Christmas was hectic. Jon and I (and Spencer) started out by going to Wickenburg for his company Christmas party (and staff meeting). We also celebrated our 6th anniversary here. We stayed at Ranchos de los Caballeros again (just like last year). We had a great time!Our girls went with Jon's family to Pine to stay in a cabin and play in the snow. We stopped back in Mesa on a few errands before joining them and found this on our doorstep! Yes, thank you Justin & Robin for the beautiful Peeps tree! Our girls honestly loved it! Jon and I got a kick out of it. And Jon has now declared war on you! We did manage to make it to Pine to join in the cabin fun. The girls got to play in the snow before we got there, so I only got a few shots of Spencer and Uncle Rob! But we had a good time there too. Here's my dad with Spencer. My dad loves to get the kids to stand up in his hands and Spencer was doing it so well! On Christmas Eve we went over to Jon's parents' home. We enjoyed a great dinner, even Spencer, who was styling his "Who needs Santa when I have Grandma" bib. Totally true! The kids got to open a present from Grandma and Grandpa - New Jammies! They all looked so great in their nice new jammies. Christmas morning was wonderful! I just loved the look of surprise on the girls' faces as they opened their presents! Here's Savannah opening a new "My Little Pony." She was so excited. Melanie is in love with her "Peter Man" movie. (I love it that she calls it that...too cute!) The girls made out like bandits! One of their favorite gifts was the Barbie & The Diamond Castle movie, along with the matching Barbie dolls. (Laurie- I figured that since your girls loved the movie so much, then mine would too!) Spencer just loved eating all of the bows and paper! He did get a few toys that he really likes to play with though. Savannah made a little present for Jon and I at school. I just love the little gifts that they make at school and I love that this one has her picture on it! Both Melanie and Savannah got new babies and they also got this baby bed that Melanie just loves! We then went over to my parent's house for breakfast and to talk to my sister, Andrea, who is serving in the Washington Tacoma mission. It really was so nice to get to talk to her on the phone. Savannah asked if Andrea gets to come home now. I told her that she wouldn't be back until after next Christmas! We also opened a few gifts from my family. Jon got 2 more nutcrackers...surprise, surprise. I really liked the baseball one that my sister, Sarah, gave him. I just wish it said Diamondbacks on it! Savannah loved getting this poodle that Uncle Tyler let her pick out for herself. The hard part was waiting that 1 day to open it before he'd let her play with it. We also made our way over to Jon's parents again for a few more gifts. All in all, we had a great Christmas. Spencer loved all of the hustle and bustle and especially the bows and ribbons! Congratulations if you made it to the end of this extremely long post! There you have all of our Holiday festivities! The day after Christmas we packed up and moved that weekend. The camera got packed away and I didn't dig it out until last week. We've had a lot go on since we moved and hopefully I'll get around to posting that soon!