Christmas Day

With much anticipation we awoke on Christmas morning and found that we had a visitor come in the night!

I am sure Santa and the reindeer enjoyed the special treats we left out for them.

And we enjoyed the presents Santa left for us!! Hudson got this super cool baseball tee, and of course other fun stuff in his stocking.

Later in the day, we went to Papa Kurt and Grandma Mary's.

The boys each got a hot wheels car and some track (among many other things). They had a fun time connecting all of the tracks and zooming their cars down the stairs!

All the cousins

After Papa's house we all went to my mom's house and opened even more presents and ate even more food! I love that Christmas Day is always so full of family and fun.

Random pictures from the day

Merry Christmas!!

Fleming Family Party

On the 19th we had our Fleming family Christmas party. Of course we enjoyed lots of good food and company.

Grandma and Grandpa Faas were even able to join us.

And then it was time for the infamouse game... what will you get? salami? a snuggie? or will you end up with something good like $$ or a giftcard... you never know.

I ended up with this pretty little baby. Luckily she also had money inside. It is actually a family joke that resurfaced after many years. A long time ago at a Fleming/Damron family reunion we took a bunch of these candles home, and for a few years it became the joke present- someone would get a giant bag of candles for their birthday or Christmas. We wondered what had happened to them, but one finally made its grand return this year. I wonder who will get it next...

presents...

I took Hudson to the dollar store this year to let him pick out his own presents for grandmas and grandpas and also his daddy. I also let him wrap them (with a little help). He ended up getting everyone flashlights (shhh... don't tell), but he was very specific about which color he picked out for each person. It was so cute and definately something I want to do with him again next year.

Graves Family Christmas

We got together earlier in the month to celebrate Christmas with the Graves side of the family. Grandma Karen always has lots of fun getting presents for the kids and planning fun games to play.

The boys loved all the great things Grandma and Grandpa got for them. Hudson was thrilled about his 'narf' gun.

and of course their laser guns!

We played a white elephant game and also another game that you play like white elephant, except Karen taped restaurant giftcards to cans of food storage. I thought that was a clever idea :)

And of course we acted out the Nativity!

Faas Family Party

We had the annual Faas Family Christmas party, and enjoyed our usual Mexican feast. The party is always full of fun and games and also a special visitor...

Apparently the boys didn't get enough at dinner, so they helped themselves to a snack.

Then the doorbell rang...who could it be?!?!

It's Santa!

All the kids got to take their turn sitting on Santa's lap to get a gift.

Some of them were happy...

some were not...

and some were just a little unsure...

I love that Santa comes to our party every year and we are looking forward what he will bring on Christmas day!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

We put up our tree at the beginning of the month. Abe put on the lights and Hudson and I did the ornaments. I have never been one to be too particular about my tree, so I let Hudson put things on pretty much wherever he wanted. I think it is more fun that way, anyway :)

I love how he put things on in bunches... there would be like 3 ornaments all right next to eachother.

Admiring the finished product!

(even Zorro was getting excited for Christmas)

Christmas Baking!!

It's become an annual tradition to get together with my sisters and Mary at the beginning of the holiday season to whip up some delicious goodies and treats. There is just something about baking that gets us into the holiday spirit.

Grandma and Grandpa helped the kids decorate gingerbread houses.

And they also got to decorate sugar cookies. I think after all the sugar they had throughout the day, Hudson was just about in a sugar coma by the end :)

Little miss Jacey decided to turn nap time into beauty time. Kylie had brought some of her play makeup without Nichole knowing, so when Jacey woke up from her nap she rummaged through their bag and found it. She decided to not only beautify herself, but also the rest of the room. (luckily most of it came off fairly well)

Here are the bakers and our goods!

Grandma Drue and Grandpa Howard were also able to be in town. We had fun sharing this special time with them, too.

Christmas Parade

This year we discovered Tempe's 'festival of lights' parade. It was the day after Thanksgiving and was such a perfect way to start getting excited about the upcoming Christmas season!!

There were lots of cool 'floats' to see... including a big firetruck and a double decker bus.

Hudson thought it was cool to get lots of candy thrown at us. We also saw the Grinch and the sheriff who was in a giant decorated tank looking thing.

And of course.....

we got to see Santa!

We had so much fun and are considering making this event an annual tradition.

Thanksgiving

It has become a tradition to join my sister's inlaws for their annual Thanksgiving breakfast and Turkey bowl. We all enjoy a huge breakfast prepared by Suz, then head over to the park for a game of flag football.

Not everyone plays, some of us just watch, and some of us took the younger kids over to the park to play for a little while.

Hudson enjoyed toting their dog around and playing at the park. KD and Adam played football, but I caught them on a break. Also pictured above is Jacey at the park. In the bottom half there are Brecken and Karsten playing with the football, Rachelle and Whitney, and baby Cully playing with his daddy's hat.

After the turkey bowl we headed out to Abe's parents to enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Melissa and Rob were able to come out from California to join us, and Shawndel's fiance came out from Texas. It was nice to have a lot of the family together!

Hudson found a lizard, of course. And we also enjoyed a nice game of Nerf war.


We went to a park close by for a little bit and asked a nice lady to take a picture of all of us together.

Hope you had a happy Turkey Day!

Family Pictures

We were able to finally take family pictures with my mom. I think it has been over 10 years since we have had an actual family photo... long enough that I think I still had braces, and definately would NOT want to post it on my blog :)

The whole gang

Just the girls with Mom and Dad... yep all GIRLS!!

(even our dog was a girl)

The grandkids... this was the best we got :)

Sisters
Whitney, Me, Kaitlyn, Nichole, Natalie, and Rachelle

Nichole, Kylie, Jacey, and Scott

Natalie and the boys- Brecken, Karsten, Cully, and Tom

Our cute fam :)

Hudson showing us how strong he is

Our handsome guy

He wasn't a fan of posing for the camera, so we had to settle for action shots :)

I am excited at how great all the pictures turned out and I hope it won't be another 10 years before we do them again!

Garbage truck

Boys and trucks, it just seems like they go together. Every Tuesday when the garbage truck comes around (and Fridays for recycle) we run out to the driveway when we hear the truck coming down our street. We usually see our friend, Tate, across the street out on his driveway, too. Don't know why they are so fascinated, but they LOVE the garbage truck.

Our garbage man is super nice, and always waves at the boys as he goes down the street. One day, he stopped his truck and got out. He had brought a mini garbage truck toy for each of the boys!! They loved them, and I was quite impressed at how thoughtful and nice our garbage man was.

Here is Hudson admiring his truck, it sure made his day!!

The Graves fam

Grandma and Grandpa Kern were able to come visit all of us at the beginning of November. It was fun to see them, and of course get a picture of all of us together that were there.

We tried to get one of just Hudson with Grandma and Grandpa, and this is what we got! lol... he decided he was going to give the cheesiest smile ever so that he could be done taking pictures.

And of course the cousins had to take the chance to dress up in some of Grandma Karen's many costumes.