A Happy New Year!

A happy family at Midnight!--ringing in the new year at Jason Swigert's home.

New Years Eve found us with family for the first time in years! We ate, played games, and hung with the family.

Grammy Jill with her granddaughters Aubrey and Gracie--they are 4 days apart in age and joined at the hip every time we go to St.George.

My sister Calista and her daughter Capri.

This is Calista's son Cameron --he is married to Ryan's sister Makenzi.

And they had cute baby Piper.  She wasn't so happy at midnight!

Here is Aunt Mary and brother in law Adam.

After the New Year's party ended, we went back to my parent's home. As per tradition in my family

Kris Kringle came and was very generous--thanks to a few Aunts who spoiled my kids rotten!

They loved every second of it.  And it was fun for my Mom to have young kids celebrate in her house again.

After they saw their goods, we quickly dressed in Sunday best and went back to Jason's house

so we could celebrate Pipers birth and have her blessing.  

It was a wonderful, happy event, as Cameron and Kenzi had tried for many years to have a baby.

Here is baby Piper with both sets of Grandparents and her Great-grandma James.

Here is the Swigert and Jennings clan. I love that my sister is in all the pictures because she is Piper's Grandma.  I am also Pipers Aunt and Great Aunt.  It's complicated!

Grammy and Poppy with most of their grand-kids. 

Also attending was my sister Randolyn with her husband Paul and daughters Boston and Irelan and the newest addition to their family- baby Mcallen.  He was a little surprise--and totally darling! 

And last, but not least--is my cute little angle baby--she wants us all to know that as long as there is chocolate in 2015--then its going to be a very Happy Year!

Where to Start

When you take almost 6 months off from blogging, it is hard to know where to start.  I have been feeling guilty lately, that I am not recording all the amazing family adventures and memories we are making here in Arizona.   

So here are pictures of our Christmas adventure to Flagstaff . We started a tradition a few years ago to have a fun family outing during the day on Christmas Eve. This year Flagstaff was the place.  In case you didn't know, there is a portal there that takes you to the North-pole to visit Santa himself!

We stayed at the Little America, then the morning of the 24th, we waited to board the magic trolley that would transport us to the North-pole!!

When we got there, the kids got to help the Elves make toys for Santa to deliver that night!

Jace also tried out this toy gun, to make sure it worked properly. It did!  Ryan can attest to that!

They wrapped presents

They wrote notes to Santa

We even got to meet Mrs. Clause!  She was super sweet. 

This is how they track Santa when he is in his sleigh making all the toy deliveries.  Jace was fascinated!

And last, but not least, we got to sit on Santa's lap!

We arrived home around 4:00PM.  Just in time for  dinner, and our traditional family devotional.

We had an angel this year!

And a taller and wiser Joseph.

Mary was very great with child. 

And she brought forth a beautiful plastic son and laid him in a cardboard manger.

And our Angel was THRILLED and shrieked for JOY!

When the children were finally all nestled all snug in their beds, a Jolly old elf came to visit!

Jace got a stash

So did Gracie

and Kjersti

This is what Ryan and I received. 

There is no morning better than Christmas morning!  If you have any doubts about it--just ask Robin and Rue!

Go-go my walking pup--what every 4 year-old needs!

I gave the Dr this pen.  I ordered it weeks before Christmas.  It was handmade just for him.  I got to select the wood and everything.  So fun.  He was really touched.  I was sick of  the plastic pens in the pockets of his scrubs leaking all over.

For the first time in 8 years, the Dr was able to buy something for himself.  He got this .22

Can you say Play-doh?

Here's my little angel baby!  She thought Christmas was fabulous. Unfortunately this is where our camera died and we have no more pictures.  We looked everywhere for that charger and didn't find it until days later.

That afternoon we had my sister Malynne, her two sons Colton and Cragun, Ryan's sister, her husband Cameron and daughter Piper come to our house.  It was the first time we have had FAMILY on Christmas day!

The guys all brought their guns and went shooting and the girls drove to Kingman to see the house I want to buy.

We came home, had a lovely dinner, then we all parted ways.  Hopefully next year will be just as wonderful.

I feel so blessed to have a knowledge of the birth of my Savior -Jesus Christ.  I know he lived and died and showed us the way, by living a perfect life of love and obedience.  May we all try harder this year to come to know Him and live our lives more like Him.  That is what we are striving for this year both individually and as a family.

We wish you a wonderful 2015!

Desert Life

Here in the desert we eat cactus for breakfast. I'm actually not kidding and it's YUMMY!!   Our friends just gave us a jar of prickly pear jam made from a cactus such as this!

It is a little poky going down---but other then that-it is the best jam you ever will have!!

All summer we lived in a subdivision called the Legends. We spent almost every evening in this pool. During the day the heat was too intense to go out much, but once we had dinner and the sun set--we spent hours here.

This is Halloween Day.  Our lease ended then.  The kids wanted to spend a last few minutes at the pool.

 Jace is trying to catch a few raindrops on his tongue.  Not sure if he had any luck.  I will miss the hot tub!

This is our little rental house--it was mostly a garage!  But we had good memories there.

Monday, October 13th found us in Phoenix attending the LDS temple open house.

It was such a beautiful and uplifting experience.  The artwork of Christ inside this temple was breath taking.  It created such a spirit of reverence and beauty that Ryan and I have decided that the rest of the artwork we buy for our future home will be religious work.

LDS temples are known for their beautiful grounds.  This one left nothing to be desired. It was October and it seemed like August.  It was 92 degrees and sunny and gorgeous!

The fountains= baby magnet. 

Here's my princess enjoying the cold water.

She kept bringing me these purple blossoms to put in her hair.

Darling!

Kjersti thought the rocks were fabulous.

At the Visitors Center they had this famous statue of Christ.  They wanted all the children who visited to touch Him.

Here you see a bad picture but a wonderful memory!

October 31st brought with it Halloween!  Here is my fairy princess

and my soldier!

He's keeping his sister in line!

Our ward Halloween party was nothing short of AMAZING!!

How many Shetland ponies do you find giving rides on the lawn of your church building?

Or barrel train rides in the parking lot?  Not to brag, but we also had TWO haunted houses and

a gymnasium full of games and prizes.

And awesome prizes at that!

Here the kids are at our new house all ready to go trick-or -treating.

Here is our cute little rabbit!  She was sweating up a storm in this outfit!

We are used to freezing cold Halloween's but this one...

found me wearing flip-flops and shorts.  It was 82 degrees!  Oh, yeah!

This is just a random picture of a cool block tower Ryan and Jace made last week.  They

knocked it down with our soccer ball.

While I was packing us up to go to St. George for a few days for Thanksgiving, the kids were outside doing this.

Building a dam in the rocks.

Kjersti LOVED it!

But it was chilly!

But it didn't stop her!

Here is the view from my back door!!!!!!!!!!!  GORGEOUS!!!!!!!!!

We have been known to climb over this fence and go hiking on the trails behind our house.  We really want a dune buggy.

One day, not too long ago, Jace came and found me as I was getting ready to put Kjersti down for a nap and told me there were weird animals on the hill behind our house. The kids of course were investigating on their ladder. 

They weren't weird animals but the wild burros!  Gracie grabbed her oatmeal and set out to catch one for a pet.

Aren't they cute?!  We found out from our neighbors that you can actually adopt one from the BLM.  But no, we won't be getting one anytime soon.

For now we will just enjoy them from afar.  I'm a mean Mom--I know!!

Well, this is it for a glimpse of our life here.  We are healthy and happy and just plugging away at things.  Ryan is hard at work building a practice and I spend all my time teaching home-school and doing laundry--lots of laundry. 

The End.