Christmas thoughts

We are having a wonderful time here in Utah being with family and being together as a family. Ahhh..relaxation.
It was nice to have the "busyness" of Christmas done days ahead so that we could make the drive to Utah, getting here a couple days before Christmas. We bought and wrapped early, mailed out of state gifts earlier than normal, did the annual newsletter last minute and at 11 p.m. (so much was left out yet still it was too long) we took the Christmas photo at the new bus stop in Rita Ranch - kinda' fun, very impromptu but it worked...
Here in Utah on Christmas eve we made sugar cookies for Santa, decorated a gingerbread house, read from Luke Chapter 2 and had a wonderful spiritual thought led by James.
Most importantly this trip we have visited with my sweet mother in law, Edna. Tears flow each time. Such a remarkable woman. I am blessed to be a part of this family. My children are blessed to have her son as their father.
Looking forward to a session at the St. George temple with Tucson friends in a few days. Feeling honored they asked us to accompany them. Feeling very blessed in so many ways.

She got it!

Let it be known that Molly received her drivers license today! Woot Woot! Watch out world, I now have two teenage drivers.

December activities

It's beginning to feel a little like Christmas here in Tucson!


Chase loved that his yoga teacher, Miss Nancy, had a santa cap her cactus, ornaments hanging from the trees overhead and candy canes on a tree for all to take and enjoy! He also loved the Target gift card she gave him as a Christmas gift!

I had the opportunity to volunteer at the elementary school during craft day. (It was also pajama day so Ryan got to wear his new puppy pajamas from Aunt Patty!) I got to help Ryan make a replica of Santa's workshop!

He also made a very cute snowman ornament. It was a wonderful morning to spend with him.

My thoughts this week have also been with these sweet young ladies. They are in our ward and neighborhood and well, they are just about the kindest, sweetest girls (and family!) you could ever meet. They are moving for six months while their dad is deployed. (maybe that's just an extended vacation but I will miss them all the same!)

Those sweet girls have a very sweet little brother who we also love. Ryan cried and cried when we said good-bye. I think it will be fun if Ryan sends his little friend letters in the mail.

This week we received a phone call from the kids' dentist telling us Chase had won their office drawing by guessing the correct amount of balls in a glass jar. And what did he win? A huge bucket of balls all in a U of A tub! He received a basketball, football, soccer ball, volleyball and a kickball! Thanks Great Grins!

I spent this week spray painting the St. George temple. Ha! Of course not really. We purchased these models of the St. George temples for our Young Women as part of their Christmas gift (the girls loved them!). Here are the before and after pictures. I think they turned out really nice.


On Friday we had a Young Women board Christmas party. It was so much fun (although I was blessed to open some of the super fantastic white elephant gifts - I am sad to report all were stolen from me during the game) LOL... It was pretty fun and I love the candle I came home with. We also had a great time playing pictionary with Christmas song titles and then having to hum into kazoos the song in its entirety once it was guessed. I am blessed to serve alongside the most amazing women!

Happy Birthday James!

Today is James' 49th birthday!

We had our family celebration on Sunday with dinner at home, choice of brownie and ice cream or root beer floats (or both!) and the opening of gifts!

The kids each made him a homemade card. Their written sentiments are always so cute and make me smile.



Tonight (Monday) we went to Texas Roadhouse for another birthday dinner celebration! Happy birthday James - we love you!

a busy week...

Last week was such a busy week so imagine my thrill when one of my visiting teachers showed up with these lovely roses. They have been thoroughly enjoyed and so very appreciated.

Here is just a sample of some of the things from our week:
Monday:
almost three hour long camp meeting to orientate the new East Stake YCL leaders (amazing ladies who will do a terrific job with their new callings!)
auditions for molly - pick up at 5:30 then she'll go to the Messiah sing-in
drama for reid - pick up at 6:30
Tuesday:
volunteer at the elementary school
auditions for Molly - pick up when she calls then take her to astronomy star gazing gathering
Austin to band concert
yoga for Chase (photo taken outside of yoga), love that pure smile of his after a session of yoga:
RS enrichment for me later that evening.

Wednesday:
Molly auditions
Reid choir concert at the Vail Theater of the Arts. He did an amazing job, we are so happy he's enjoying choir.

Following Reid's concert Molly and I went to Young Women for a progressive Christmas activity. The Beehives were in charge and it was a wonderful evening. We went to three houses and had a different activity at each home. The first we decorated sugar cookies for ourselves and some to send the the soldiers. The second home we each made a cute ornament and the third home we listened to the story of the birth of Jesus from the scriptures and enjoyed our refreshments. Also at each home our hosts told us some of their favorite Christmas memories.

Thursday:
Molly's high school choir concert.
She is in both concert choir and show choir so it's fun to be able to watch her throughout the evening.

Friday:
The entire family went to see Chase perform with the elementary school choir. He did a great job!

After the choir concert we went as a family to the 9 p.m. Gaslight theater Christmas show. It was a late evening for all but everyone really, REALLY enjoyed the show!


Molly has been having too much fun making strange faces for the camera!
It was a Boeing evening at the Gaslight so it was fun to see the individuals James works with on a daily basis.

Molly turns sweet 16!

Molly had her sweet 16 birthday party the night before her 16th birthday since our ward Christmas party was on her birthday. She invited about 30 of her closest friends and 27 of them were able to come help her celebrate!
She chose the colors silver, white and red to decorate for the party. We had a "birthday tree" which was special because it had snowflake ornaments on it from her Grandma Gubler:

We bought a lot of fun candlesticks and decor items while we visited Utah for Thanksgiving. Originally we planned on having a lot of the decor outside but the weather (finally!) turned cool here so the majority of the party was inside. Outside though we offered a fire in the fire bowl with all the makings for s'mores, foosball, a bowling game, trampoline and tables with votive candles on them.
Inside we had the movie Elf playing that we projected off the wall, lots of food and what we called the "altar to Molly" (lol) Lots of pictures of Molly in silver frames that showed her from a toddler to today.


We also showed a slide show of Molly's life in pictures. That was very fun to watch!


Here's the group's silly picture:

Molly received a lot of sweet tarts as gifts! You'll have to ask her to explain the story behind the sweet tarts!

A picture of Molly and mom during the celebration:

Happy Sweet 16 Molly! We love you oh so much!

Molly becomes a laurel!

Joanne (laurel advisor) and I (young women president) decorated Molly's bedroom to welcome her to the laurel class! Although her birthday was on a Saturday we decorated on Friday so that we could do it while Molly was at school.

We are so excited to have a third laurel in our class! Turning 16 is the best!

zoo lights!

We went to zoo lights last night for zoo members. I say "we" lightly as the only takers I had in going with me were Austin and Ryan. I think the others missed out on some fun, the lights were beautiful. I also enjoyed listening to two of my camp YCL's sing some Christmas songs as they entertained the crowd.

He may look bored in this picture but really he just doesn't like to smile. He was a great sport in going with me.

Ryan and I rode the lighted train around the zoo parking lot. He thought is was the coolest thing ever! We may have to go again just to ride the train.

Thanksgiving weekend 2009

We left Thanksgiving morning for a trip to Utah. I sat in the front passenger seat most of the time but took a turn in the very back where I saw a lot of this:

and this:

and was entertained a lot from this guy (made the ten hour trip go faster!):

We ate our Thanksgiving day meal this year at the IHOP in Flagstaff (veering off from our standard Village Inn). Most of us had breakfast food (how's that for tradition?) The staff at IHOP was SO sweet and nice. They were scheduled to close at 2 and we didn't arrive until 1:45 but they let us come in and eat and treated us like family. We will definitely be giving them more of our business.
We made it to Utah safe and sound and had a great nights sleep at Edna's house. The next morning was Black Friday but we didn't participate in any of the madness. Rather P (James' sister) and I took these two great gals to some stores (Roberts Crafts, TJ Maxx and More, Old Navy, Kohls) and to the Dixie Center craft show (big this year were chunky beaded watches and flower hair clips). I remember when Molly was not interested at all in shopping but this year she did great.

We found lots of fun treasures for Molly's sweet 16 birthday bash. I haven't shopped that long is forever, so fun! It was a wonderful day. Thanks P!

Friday night the boys stayed in and watched some movies - Mr. Bean and Jackie Chan - so what's a girl to do? I headed out of there and went to see New Moon. Even though Molly had already seen it she decided to come with me (smart girl).

Saturday morning the boys played some pine cone basketball outside.

Then we loaded everyone into the van so we could go visit with grandma. It was so special to be with her. I am thankful I have these pictures.


Chase really wanted to perform service at the assisted living home his grandma is at so he gathered up all these leaves into a big pile to help out the workers! Chase has such a heart of gold - love this boy!

After our visit we took the kids back to grandma's house and then James and I ran into town to do some Christmas shopping. We ate a early lunch because we knew we would be having our Thanksgiving feast with family that evening.We stopped at Artic Circle for fry sauce!

Patty hosted our family Thanksgiving dinner. She did an amazing job with the table decorations. We all love her napkin folding ability! Everything was beautiful!

Can you tell most all the cousins are boys? :)

It was wonderful to share a delicious meal with family.
We left early Sunday morning. Ryan cried. He told Aunt P that he wanted to live there.
We made it all the way to Jacob Lake and then encountered so much snow that we needed to turn around and take a different route home. First though we stopped to play for a few minutes in the white stuff.