Christmas 2010

So much to our surprise, you can actually dream of a white Christmas here in New Mexico. OK so it snowed a week before Christmas and then it all melted away within 2 days. Which, in my opinion is the best kind of snow. It stayed just long enough for school to be canceled, the kids to play in it, and me to sit by the Christmas tree watching it fall through the window.

David's parents spent Christmas with us which was wonderful. Christmas Eve we did a nativity play. But since we were a little short on boys we all had a part. It was very...unique.

E.V. loved opening presents but the stockings were by far her favorite.

Is E.V. just full of holiday joy? No, she's just full of candy canes that she stole off the tree. She then proceeded to hide behind the table and eat them.

Has it Really Been a Whole Year?

I can't believe my baby is one already. In between all the festivities we managed to cram a quick birthday party in. Poor December baby.

What's Been Happening

We celebrated David's 33 birthday. He got all kinds of new BYU paraphernalia which he used when he went to the New Mexico Bowl. Go Cougars!



We played "Pretty, Pretty Princess" with Grandpa and he was the prettiest princess of all. We love having them so close.

We had Thanksgiving with a lovely family in our ward.

We went on a marathon car trip.

First visiting our friends in Phoenix. The Mesa temple was so beautiful. We made all the girls pose in the cactus garden. I love the look on Ambrey's face. She was not happy about standing by the cactus. We ended our lovely visit of the temple by swiping a few lemons, oranges and kumquats from the trees on the grounds. (Hell table for 1)

We stayed a night in Las Vegas. As we were driving in Tabitha says "Mom, I've just seen three inappropriate things." Despite the inappropriate things we had fun.


After stopping in Salt Lake for a few days we continued up to Idaho Falls to go to my niece Ashley's wedding. She looked gorgeous and even though it was freezing cold and E.V. was sick, we had a great time.


My nephew Nick and I trained my girls on the finer points of decorating the newlywed's car.


Two days after coming back Tabitha was in her school's spelling bee. She did great tying for 4th place. I swear the words are getting harder than when I was in it. Tabitha went out on the word "Lugubrious". When I was in a spelling bee I went out on the word "Couch".

EV

Here's a couple pictures to make up for the fact that I didn't take any pictures of EV on Halloween.

Halloween

And the costumes for this Halloween are...

A Gypsy

Barbie

And the winner is Fancy Nancy. This was also by far the easiest costume since most days Charlotte is dressed like Fancy Nancy anyway.

There aren't any pictures of the baby or me since I was in charge of the ward Halloween party. We did The Wizard of Oz again so most of you have already seen me as Dorothy. EV made the cutest Toto ever but I didn't have time to photograph her either.

Ellie's Baptism/Richard's Visit

OK I am a little behind, but a while ago we baptized Ellie. My brother Richard and his family came down for it and brought my mom with them. We had such a great time.

We visited Santa Fe and ate at the Shed.

The tres amigos. My brother and his two boys.

Ellie's Baptism




Ellie in her new dress. And no I am not beating her. One of the kids in her gym class mistook her head for a tennis ball and smacked her in the face with a racket.

The favorite toy of the weekend was definitely E.V. I think my nieces would have happily stuffed her in their suitcase and taken her home.

10 Years Ago Today

Ten years ago today we were in the hospital holding a beautiful new baby girl and talking to the nurses about how cool her 10th birthday would be on 10/10/10. I can hardly believe that ten years have come and gone. But I am so grateful that we have our beautiful girl Tabitha.

Last night we had her fabulous birthday party.




There was a lot of singing and dancing and general silliness.




David made her this fabulous ice cream cake. I added the relighting candles which never cease to make me laugh.

I love that she still gets this excited over a doll. It makes me feel like she might stay a little girl for a few more years.

David and I decorated her room for her birthday. She was so excited. She hasn't wanted to leave her room all day.




E.V. was our very willing clean up crew.