This year our ward did things a little differently and did the “Christmas” Sacrament Meeting the day after Christmas.
Which for me was probably a good thing. It gave me an extra week to get Rachel’s bow made and find pants that fit Zachary.
The results: 4 good looking kids!
This was the best shot,we could get. Most looked like this:
or like this
Here is one final shot of our sweet little angel.
Here are our families Christmas Highlights:
Brandon: He got a cell phone!!
He also got a Paper Jams Guitar, books, pocket knife, Nerf gun, and a ton of video games.
Zachary: 
Zachary scored on the video game front too. He also got 3 Lego sets, a Paper Jams Guitar, a few books, a few gift cards and a roll of toilet paper form his big brother.
Ethan:
Ethan got lots of books to read, 2 Lego sets, a Paper Jams Guitar, a Lego board game, a Skate Board and of course Video games.
Rachel:
Rachel got a play kitchen( which she hasn’t’ left all day), a new baby, a easel, play food, a tent,a cleaning set,play food, dress up dress, books, and doll accessories.
Bob and Debbie: We didn’t do to bad either. We got a new bed, and are going on a cruise on the 2nd.
Bob also got a pressure washer, some new tools, and some new jeans.
Debbie also got a pretty bracelet, some accessories for her Kindle, and some slippers.
We had a nice quiet Christmas Eve. The best part was seeing Rachel discover Christmas for the first time. She was mesmerized by Santa on the computer. I am not joking when I say she sat there for over an hour and watched his travels across the world.
We only got her off the computer long enough to go outside and put out her reindeer food. After Ethan and Rachel put out the food for Santa’s reindeer, it was right back to the computer until bed.
We finally had to turn off the computer so we could take a quick Christmas jammies picture.
Then it was off to bed for Little Missy, while the rest of us played games to pass the time until bedtime.
Tonight we made our Gingerbread Houses. The kids had a lot of fun decorating their very own houses this year.
Rachel really surprised us and got into decorating hers. Then as soon as we took her picture, started eating all the candy off
Last night we made our annual trip out to the Mesa Temple to see the temple lights.
We usually do this on Christmas Eve, followed by looking at light in our neighborhood, and then doing cookies for Santa.This year with a 2 year old who has to go to bed on time, we had to switch things up a bit.
The weather was so nice, we hardly needed our jackets and the crowds were much smaller than Christmas Eve. I think we have decided this may be the way we do it from now on.
The other morning we woke up to FOG!!! It is very rare here, and the kids thought it was so cool.
A few days before hand Bob and I had just been talking about how growing up in Sacramento we automatically think of Christmas and fog!
This picture isn’t great, I took it about 30 minutes to late,most of it had burned off by this point.
It really WAS foggy. Not nice thick Sacramento fog, but for AZ it was pretty foggy.
We have been trying to be really strict about when Rachel can have her pacifiers. We keep them in a little box when she is awake. Well she learned how to climb up on her dresser and open the box when she decided she needed one.
So being the smart parents we are , now they are up high. I caught her the other day trying to get one!
This is my cute little shadow. She loves to help. When I do the dishes and work around the house I wear an apron a lot of the time. So when I found this cute child apron, it was a must have. It came with a Mommy one too, so now we both look good while we do our work.
This semester Zachary has been doing cross country on his school team. This was take at the meet last week at Discovery Park. It was a tough course. They had a few big hills to climb.
He is doing great and every meet seems to improve his time just a little. This time he had a 14:31.
Saturday Ethan decided it would be fun to rake the leaves from our one sad little tree that actually loses it leaves.
Rachel decided to join the fun. Even though we didn’t have as many leaves as Ethan imagined playing in, they had a blast raking, jumping and being covered with all of the leaves.
Rachel really likes the advent calendars that we have at our house. I should clarify she likes what is in the advent calendar.
This is not the first time that I have come around the corner and found this sight!
Now we officially have NO candy in any of our advent calendars, what is left is put up and the kids have to just ask for it when it is their turn.
Last night we took Rachel and Ethan to see the Yo Gabba Gabba Live show.
It was really cute and Rachel LOVED it.
She was so excited to see the characters and they sang the songs from all of her favorite episodes. She danced and sang the whole night.
A few more pictures of the night. Most were to dark since the didn’t allow flash photography.
Brandon was chosen for Dr. Alva’s All Stars for the month of November. He was chosen by his math teacher for outstanding academic achievement. After she told us what a pleasure it is to have Brandon in her class. That he is such a hard worker.
Keep up the good work Brandon.
Today while Rachel and I were at the mall, there was NO line to see Santa. So we decided to go see him. She did great last year, but being older I wasn’t sure how she would do.
She wasn’t sure at first, but he started to talk to her and then she climbed right on his lap. She just kept looking at him and answering all his questions.
The only time she got sad was when she ad to get down!! She kept saying,”more Santa”. It was so cute!!
I was deathly afraid of him as a child. All of our photos as kids we were screaming or Mom and Dad were in the pictures too!!
