christmas goodness

We had a wonderful Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve with Gabe's family. It was tons of fun! Kiera was so cute opening her presents. When she opened one of the ones from us, she said "It's a box of donuts!" (it was just in a white shirt box.)

We went a little overboard with chicken/rooster stuff for Linda... (then i watched the Food Network all day on New Years Eve - don't judge...i was cleaning too - and i learned that roosters are a sign of good luck in the kitchen.

Kiera's obsessed with The Wizard of Oz so we gave her some collectables. She loved them but we could barely get her to hold still for a picture!


Kiera loves Gabe. it's very sweet.

We got home late on Christmas Eve and went straight to bed so that Santa would come... and looks like someone did, because check out our tree on Christmas Morning!

We got so many wonderful gifts! I got Gabe a bike and he got me a new camera and a new cell phone.

We went down to Mission Viejo on Christmas Day to be with my family. They thought they were so funny playing a trick on me... (they were hiding gabe's bike for me and pretended it had been stolen!) i cried, they laughed. it was fun. We opened more presents and had a delicious lunch of carnitas and enchiladas. Gabe got a BBQ from my parents and I got a mixer!

one last bit of Christmas cheer was a little bit of crafting. I did this about a week before Christmas...

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year!!!

Road Trip

On 12/17 - we headed on a road trip to UT for my grandparent's 60th Anniversary. We stopped on the way and stayed the night in Vegas. We got a GREAT deal from Vegas.com (i recommend using this site if you're going to Vegas.) We stayed at the Excalibur for $28. you can't get a rate that good at the Motel 6!! Plus, Excalibur is a pretty castle!

I might have annoyed Gabe with my tourist-y behavior, but I have never been to Vegas before. (I've been through it TONS of times....)

I LOVE the lions at the MGM Grand. I've decided I want one as a pet.

We love how EXCITED this chick is for the buffet....

(had to take that picture for Liz)

Of course we had to check out the strip at night. With all the lights, it was hard to get the right settings on my camera. there was too much light to use the night settings, but too little light for day settings and the flash ruined everything.

cool shot as we drove by the Paris hotel.

the strip.

we finished driving the rest of the way on 12/18. We got to SLC around 1:30 and had lunch with Natalie and Brett (USU friends).

here's the first sign of snow...

Once we had all arrived in SLC, we had dinner at Tucanos (delicious) and went to see the Christmas lights (cold but fun).

Emily looked so cute in her puffy, sparkly, mint-green coat.

we took Trax along with everyong else in downtown SLC. i got to sit next to this lovely sign...

mike must've been a popcicle in his sweatshirt.

we were nice and cosyin our winter coats/scarves/gloves. and we won't wear them again for another year, i'm sure!

Saturday night was the party....

We headed out on Sunday morning at 7:30. We had to scrape frost from our car that morning and by the time we made it home to Anaheim, it was 70 degrees and sunny.

It was a fun & quick trip.

Catch-up, Crafts, & Christmas

We had so much fun at Thanksgiving! it was great to have everyone in town. there was so much going on, I hardly had time to take pictures, but here's what i did get....

you can see the back of mike's head in this one.

i loved that we kept telling mom to bring dumbo lower and she just smiled & waved!

brian went running straight for the yellow teacup. :)

this is from the science museum. they were all very put out by the fact i wanted them to take time away from exploring to take a picture.

choo choo matthew.

For my birthday, mom & dad gave me a gift card to go buy myself a bike. we finally got it! it's pretty blue. I haven't had a bike since elementary school and i will admit that i got a little nervous as i got on top of it... but i'm very excited about my pretty Blue Birthday Bike!

now we need to get Gabe a bike so we can go for rides together. :)

last saturday, we had some crafting time. it was great to catch up with becky - we missed her at thanksgiving. and it was funny that she accidentally called sam and he heard us talking about him in the background! we made Christmas Cards... here are the fruits of my labor:

this one was my least favorite, but i think it's still OK.

this one is my favorite. :)

this one kinda copies the one above.

we got our (real) Christmas tree and we decorated with lights on the porch.

we're excited for the road trip next week - although we're going to freeeeeeeze!!