December 18 - 24

So.... this is my very sad post because this is where there are NO pictures... hardly! A couple of ones I have saved from my phone:( And the rest I stole off of my family's Facebook pages!

We don't put any presents under the tree until Christmas Eve because that is just pure torture for a 4 year old.... 100% temptation! However, we had a lot of sweet friends that had given the kids some early Christmas gifts (and us!) so we put those under the tree and Daniel would check every day the gifts. He would look on the tags to see which ones were whose... I think it added a certain amount of built up suspense and excitement for Christmas gifts:)

And the only picture of Katelyn... of course, playing with her babies and Max wanted in on this picture too!

We also attended with some church friends a story time with Mrs. Claus! I had SO many pictures on my camera with the kids on her lap, etc and they are ALL gone!!! It was really cute.. they had some Christmas songs, a snack and a craft and got a little goody bag on the way out.

My sister came in on Friday... YEAH! We had breakfast at our house on Christmas eve then let the kids open all of their presents from us. They played the WHOLE day with their gifts then that evening we had our Christmas Eve services!

My grandparents from Florida sent the kids these ADORABLE jammies and a doll/ bear with matching jammies.... SOOOO CUTE! She also got them matching jackets!

Daniel singing "Happy Birthday, Jesus" at church.... SOOOOOOOOO cute!

We went to look at Christmas lights after the Christmas Eve service... one of the neighborhoods across from the church was AMAZING!

Merry CHRISTmas!

December 11 - 17

These boys have started a tradition that most Sunday after church one comes home with the other.... this Sunday it was our house and let me just say Daniel is completely OBSESSED with Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders right now... DAILY we get asked to play! LOL!

This week was Daniel's first week in the group classes for Tae Kwan Do! Let's just say that it was very overwhelming for me... They wanted him to take a minimum of 3 classes per week! He loved it and did really well but all of the classes were around dinner time so... we came up with a great idea! TBall Season was right around the corner and we knew he really wanted to do TBall with all of his friends so we said, "Daniel, you can only do one activity... do you want to do Tae Kwan Do or TBall?" He thought about it and chose TBall so we let him do Tae Kwan Do until the TBall season started... LOL!

However, Brendon really loved everything that Tae Kwan Do was teaching Daniel so we might enroll again after TBall... now I know where "Mom the Taxi Cab Driver" phrase came from!

Daniel also had his Christmas Play at school this week and when I went through my pics, I guess I didn't really take that many but took this video instead.


Saturday was Samantha's 4th Birthday party at Great Play! Seriously, I think Great Play does one of the most fun Birthday Parties... they are really fun!!!


So, Brendon picked up Daniel from the party to take him to Intel's Christmas Party! One of the guys in our church is an architect for Intel's new construction project... the news article said this...
Intel’s Fab 42 will be the most advanced high-volume semiconductor manufacturing facility in the world. It is a $5 Billion project that Intel is paying for in CASH! They also have the 2nd largest crawling crane in the entire world that they brought in to build this building! President Obama toured the project a month after this party as well.

This was a HUGE thing for Daniel and Brendon to get to go to this as the construction project is fairly top secret and they usually don't open it up to the public or even the employees... however, the builder decided to host a Christmas party for all sub-contractors or anyone who plays some kind of role in the construction of this facility. Our friend Tom invited Brendon and Daniel to be his guests!!!! Brendon asked if it was okay if Chad and Zander could come along too... Tom graciously extended the invite to them as well.



They had constructed a very large tent with catered food that Brendon said it was AMAZING!
There were TONS of activities for the kids (according to Brendon), dressed up characters, prizes, etc! Daniel still talks about this and every time he sees the crane, he yells... I have been there before! Thank you, Tom, for the amazing experience!
Then it was "PARTY TIME" for mom on Saturday night! All of us girls got together at our friend Sheila's house... she moved to the West Side of the Valley a while back and we had never got a chance to see her new house... so, we all crammed into one vehicle and drove to our Christmas party! Let's just say we had a great time!

This is where I need to break the news that I am just recently getting over!!! My sister and Christopher came for Christmas and the week after we went to the zoo... I left my brand new camera at the zoo with ALL of my pictures from this point forward! I literally called the zoo like 15 times and Brendon even went back to the zoo to look for it... it had all of my Christmas pictures on it... all of the Christmas activities that I did with the kids... fortunately, I do take a lot of pictures on my phone and have been able to download pics from Brendon's camera and other people have sent me pics because my heart was completely broken.... broken into a million pieces! Maybe this is the reason I haven't even wanted to blog... I don't have pictures!!! :(

Santa!

Yes, it is Easter and I am blogging about Christmas... LOL! HYSTERICAL! Blogging has just had to be on the bottom of the priority list for the last couple of months....

Last year, we went to the Bass Pro Shop Winter Wonderland with the Haymon's and Harb's... this year, we decided we were going to do it again! So, we set the date for a Saturday (last year we did a weekday)... BPS does this cool thing so you don't wait in a long time... when you get there, they give you a time slot card and you just come back when it is your time and your wait is very minimal. Well, I don't remember what time we got there but our time slot card was for like 3 or 4 hours later!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, we went to dinner at Famous Dave's then went to the Mormon Temple in Mesa to see their amazing Christmas light display... then we went back to BPS to see SANTA!

Daniel was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited to see Santa... they have a station set up that you can write a letter to Santa....so, Daniel was making his list:)

Daniel and his buddy Zander!

Joya and Katelyn

Well, below tells you what Katelyn thought of Santa!!! LOL!

However, Daniel stayed on his lap FOREVER and he had A LOT to tell Santa!!! He had been thinking through this for A VERY LONG time... rehearsing it to me over and over!!!

Santa was very patient with him and actually seemed to enjoy his time with Daniel.

Lots of Love for Santa!

Then we rode on the carousel!

Friday = Christmas Parties

So, the lady on the far left is TRUDY MAPLES! She is a freakin' ROCK STAR! She is the #1 Pampered Chef lady in the world! I didn't exaggerate that statistic (ok...maybe some months she is #3 or #2 but she is always at the top!). This year she also opened a cooking school and it is SOLD OUT! She is adding more classes, etc but she has just been featured on 2 local morning news shows and they want her back every 3 months because she is JUST THAT GOOD! Every year, she hosts an amazing Christmas party where she invites every single hosts that hosted a Pampered Chef Party for her that year... she gives away $1000's of free product in Pampered Chef products.... it was REALLY fun! I hosted another Pampered Chef party for her this year just so I could go back to her Christmas party... LOL! Also, if you check out her Cooking School website, our company designed that:)

So, I "party hopped" this night... it was my mom's group Christmas Party... Ugly Sweater and Ornament Swap... I didn't wear an ugly sweater because of attending the prior party....

I totally swiped these pictures off of my friend Jill's blog:) LOL!

GAME TIME!!!

I.LOVE.THESE.LADIES!!!!
One thing I have learned this year is how important it is to laugh.... as my trainer told me on Tuesday, it is vitally important to find something to laugh about and smile at daily... it is so important to your overall health!
So, today... LAUGH! LAUGH RIGHT NOW!
I promise it will make you feel better... instantly!!!
LOL! LOL! LOL! LOL! LOL! LOL!