"Grand" New Year

After spending a great week in Arizona for Christmas, we decided to take to opportunity of having Doug off from work and make a visit to the Grand Canyon on the way home. We arrived a little before sunset and the view that awaited us was amazing. The boys were even shocked into silence that was followed by Ahhhs. Even as the light disappeared and the temperature dropped, the boys wanted to stay out to look at all the stars.

Visiting the Canyon during the winter is a different experience. You are not able to go very fast or very far because all of the trails are covered in ice. But on the plus side, there is not as many people so you are able to see and experience the Canyon without feeling you are shoulder to shoulder. The national parks also have a great program call the Junior Rangers. This is where kids can learn more about the park they are visiting. After completing the requirements, they take an oath and receive a certificate.

The Boys working on their Junior Ranger Program

We enjoyed the time together as a family and the best part was hearing the boys amazement over something that isn't on a T.V. or video game screen. To be able to enjoy the wonders of the earth, breath fresh air, and share it all with the four people that mean most to me.

Christmas

I know it is over a month late, but you know what they say....."better late than never." So here we go. Christmas day dawned early for the boys. Thankfully, Papa and the boys have their very own tradition of watching cartoons until 7 am to allow all of the adults to sleep. After waking the rest of the house up the boys have to stay down the hall and wait until everyone is ready.

The big present this year was bikes. The boys were able to enjoy the bikes all during their break from school.

After opening presents at Nana and Papa's, we headed to Becky's to enjoy breakfast and opening presents with the Holmes'. The rest of the day was spent in rest. Movies, books, and games were enjoyed. We were also able to enjoy the company of our family.

Lack of Posting

I think it is funny that I feel a nagging need to write a post to explain why I haven't been posting. I believe this "blogging" has become a sickness. So here it is......I haven't had a completely working/reliable computer in two months. I know, kinda anti-climatic but there it is anyway.

Right after Thanksgiving we started seeing dark spots on our monitor. Sent it in to HP and HP received it damaged....(darn those FedEx people). After many calls, hours, and maybe a few threats my laptop was returned Wednesday in perfect working order. YEA!!!!! It took me a few days to restore my back-up (always make a back-up.....in fact back-up your computer after reading this....you can thank me later) and install all our programs back on. But now we are fully functional. YEA, again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can now post about Christmas Day and going to the Grand Canyon. The only bad part is that I now need to do something in my life worth posting about. Then again, maybe not.....I've gone this long with very little in that department.

The Tale of Two Christmas Trees

When you travel for Christmas you run into many logistic questions. How are we going to get the presents back and forth? How are we going to fit all the family activities in to the time allotted? And how much do we decorate our house for a holiday that we will be celebrating in a different state? We decided this year to have a real tree that the boys could decorate. This included popcorn and cranberries strings, colored lights, and only the ornament's that the boys really liked. None of Mom's silly ribbons or bows. Just good boy fun.

Mom always does a beautiful job on her tree. Not that she does it alone. This year Dad and Jen were conscripted into tree service. When it was all done and after Santa had visited it just glowed.

Christmas Eve

It is always a trick to fit two extended families events into one night. We are grateful for every ones flexibility. Before we left Las Vegas, we sat down as a family and made a list of what were our family traditions. After doing that, it was easy to see where we wanted to be and how we wanted to spend the evening (OK afternoon, evening, and night).

First was homemade pizza. Ever since I as young my family would head over to Granny and Grampy's house for homemade pizza. There were years of great success and years of pure uneatable masterpieces. In fact it was late one Christmas Eve that I was first introduced to the miracle of Alka-Seltzer . Well, as the family has grown we have started doing homemade pizza at Nana and Papa's. It is always good for a laugh. We are so glad Spencer has joined our family this year. He has proven his worth by mastering the art of the pizza dough roll-out. I would love to include the dozens of pictures that I took of the event but I really need to move on with the evening.

Next it was off to Aunt Becky's house for the Cousins Nativity Pageant. Many years ago Grandpa wrote down the full nativity story and recently Grandma has put together costumes for the cousins to wear as they play parts in the nativity. As cousins are added so are costumes. This year we were able to have a really baby for Baby Jesus and we even had a sheep.

After the Nativity, we headed off to the Mesa Temple grounds to see the light display. Again this is a tradition of mine that goes back many years, but we have even tried to see light displays on Christmas Eve when we aren't in Arizona.

Then we headed home for the reading of the Night Before Christmas, jammies, cookies and milk for Santa, and finally to bed. Doug reads to our boys every year to put thought of "sugar plums" in their head before heading off to bed. One of my favorite traditions is to watch my husband read to my boys.

Say Cheese

Since we don't know how close to "home" we will be next year, we traveled to Mesa again to celebrate Christmas. We were blessed to be able to celebrate with all our family on both sides. So what do you do when you get everyone together? Take family pictures of course!!!! I was just glad we only had to put together one picture outfit (yes I know, males don't have outfits but you give me another name for a coordinated set of clothes) for both sets of pictures.

We took the Holmes' Family Pictures on the Mesa Temple grounds. After which Doug expressed the thought that the grounds may need to be re-dedicated since some of our behavior was less than reverent. Here are a few of my favorites that we were able to catch.

The Original Five

Doug, Bryant, Tyler, James

Cathie, Farrell, Becky

Grandma and Grandpa with the Twelve Grandchildren

Matt, Jacob, Marin

Grandma and Ben, Grandpa and Micheal, Ashlyn

Danny, Nate, Jerry, Randon

Adam, Thomas

The Holmes' Men
We really don't have a lack of boys

Holmes' Girls

We do need a few more of these

The next day was the Smith Family's turn. We took pictures at the Mesa Art Center. We had fun with different areas around the Art Center but since I was in a lot of the pictures I only got to take a few of my own.

Mom and Dad/Nana and Papa

Don't they look great????

The Smith Boys

Doug, Dad, Craig, Spencer

Danny, Matt, Nat

Craig looks so happy to have a crowd around him.

It has taken a long time but finally the men out number the women in the family.

Smith Girls

Kate, Kristen, Mom, Jen

Jymie

Out numbered finally!!!!

Their First

Craig and Jymie are expecting their first. Jymie was such a good sport at stuck out her tummy as far as she could for the pictures. Not that it would go out very far. Needless to say, as a family we are so excited for this new little one to come.

Cool Aunt Jen and her boys

Isn't she beautiful? My boys always know that CA Jen is always up for fun.

Snow in Las Vegas

Last year in Cleveland the one thought that got us through the long winter of shoveling snow was that this year we would be in a snow free part of the country. We looked forward to a mild winter with no white stuff in view. Imagine our chagrin when the snow started to fall in Las Vegas. After four years of Cleveland winters, we were able to laugh at the drivers on the road who didn't know how to drive with fluff falling from the skies, classes being canceled, and shut down roads. The next day the boys (who were out of school on a "snow day') and I went out to Red Rock to capture the record breaking weather and play in the snow.

Doug's Birthday

On the 13th of December we celebrated Doug's birthday. Oddly enough he turned 30 again this year. We really know how to party around here so we went out to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner and came home for cheese cake. Pretty sad, I know, but that's what the man wanted. He received a commercial waffle maker and waffle mix in a can from the boys and I. If you know Doug, you know that this is greatly appreciated. It means that when he doesn't feel like cereal he can have waffles without slowing him down in the morning. Waffles are the only other food he can stomach in the morning.

When we were first married I was determined to send my man out the door everyday with a warm breakfast. I would get up every morning to make him eggs and bacon or biscuits and gravy. After a month of my dedicated work, he kindly told me he appreciated the effort but eating a big breakfast in the morning made him sick. Happily I have stayed in bed ever since.

Car Show

The Friday after Thanksgiving we took the boys to Car and Driver's Car Show. All the new models were out and we all got to OOH and AAH. The boys were able to sit in two of their favorite types of cars, Mustang GT and Corvette. They decided that they would really love to own a Mustang but in a pinch would take a Corvette. I love my boys and their priorities.