Cousin Visit!

We had a really fun visit with Katie and Dustin and their kids before Thanksgiving. Ella and Rand were SO EXCITED about to see their cousins! They were adorable reading stories and playing together. Ella and Elijah were great at pretending all sorts of games. Rand and Ella both loved to hold Josiah, who Ella declared "the cute little baby!"

The train park was fabulous. They anxiously waited for the train....

...and snagged the blue car!

Elijah really liked the model trains.

We really, really tried to get a good picture of the four kids. It didn't really happen.

"Catch Uncle Dustin and Josiah" is a great game!

This was Ella's favorite thing to do all weekend.

Thanksgiving....2 months late

We had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving here at home. Well, as quiet as it could be with a bunch of dogs. Doug came out to spend the week and it was so nice seeing him. We went to Texas Roadhouse, which Rand declared his new favorite restaurant, watched a few movies, and Doug got to help Werner work on his play and go to Rand and Ella's Thanksgiving celebration at their school.

I had a really frustrating dog over Thanksgiving who WOULD NOT BE CAUGHT and was driving me crazy. I finally came storming in and half-jokingly told Rand that I would give him $10 if he could catch the dog for me. He was on his way outside to get a book he left in the car, and a few minutes later he came back inside crying. He told me that he tried to catch the dog, and was holding onto his collar, but the dog jumped around and stepped on his bare foot. I felt terrible, and apologized, and helped him get shoes and a leash. He went out and then actually got the leash on the dog and brought him inside. Then I was a lousy mom because I didn't have $10 in cash, so I compromised by giving him some candy with a promise to give him the money in a few days. Serves me right for making a statement like that!

Ohhhh, how Rand and Ella love the beach. They have so much fun playing there. I think it is their favorite thing about California.

Everybody loved being buried by Grandpa!

Rand had an epic frisbee tournament with Grandma, then we went rock climbing!

The kids all found "buried pirate treasure"....lots of tiny rocks mixed with pieces of broken glass. Awesome.

We found a bunch of tiny tidepools with little crabs -- Rand liked holding the crabs and letting them walk on his hand, while Ella and Elijah were content to watch them walk around on the rocks til they fell back into the water. Rand and I also found lots of sea anemones and I showed him how if you touch them gently they shrink up. He thought that was awesome and did that to as many as he could until the tide started getting too high.

Christmas in California Pictures

Ella and Grannie!

Ella adores Josiah.

Wrestling Grandpa in the park!

McDonald's for breakfast....mmmm!

Building a playhouse

My Dad is building a fabulous playhouse outside, and it was fun watching it go up while we were there. Ella loved "helping" Grandpa, climbing the ladder, and playing in the slide as it was being assembled. The box that the slide came in was great fun to draw in, and of course Rand and John had to dig for a while in the dirt pile.

Merry Christmas, Part 1

We had a really fun Christmas in Phoenix. We started off by going to our church's Christmas Eve service...they had all of the kids come up from and sing "Jingle Bells," which was adorable. We followed that up with our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of French Dip. Rand was so excited he didn't fall asleep until 10:30pm.....

....and then he was up at 5am the next morning! Fortunately I was able to shoo him away for a bit to read in his room. After Ella woke up, we immediately opened stockings and then started making cinnamon rolls. After they were in the oven, we headed down for the Christmas tree! Werner lit a fire and we turned on Christmas music.

Rand and Ella had so much fun opening their presents. Because they didn't get gobs of presents we just took our time and let them play with things as they went along.

Then we went upstairs and had a deliciously unhealthy breakfast of eggs, sausage, and homemade cinnamon rolls with loads of frosting. We hosted an open house the rest of the afternoon and evening, and it was so fun having various friends stop by to chat, play games, and eat. It made for a really nice Christmas even without our family around!

Turtlerock!

We took a lovely hike up Turtlerock when we visited California last month. None of us had ever been up there, and it was so much fun! There were beautiful views, lots of rocks to climb, and all kinds of treasures to find (snail shells, abandoned soccer balls, and so on).

Climbing trees is fun!