Christmas Preparations

Whew I can't believe December is almost over!  We've been very busy having fun and preparing for Christmas!  We've been doing some Christmas crafts.... 

Alex's

Aurora's

Putting up Christmas decorations.... 

Making Christmas candy and cookies...

Playing in the snow...that's right, we've already had TWO snow storms here in the desert and another one on its way tonight!

Preparing the turkey fryer for making fried turkey on Christmas Day!

And visiting Santa!



I think we're ready!

Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year!  I haven't mentioned it here, but Grandma and Grandpa S (my parents) got a divorce this year, so Grandma S joined us at Josh's parents' on Thanksgiving Day.  We were also fortunate to have my brother, Derrek, here this year!  This is the first time in 3 years that he has been around for the holidays!

The kids had a blast wrestling with their Auntie and uncles all afternoon.  We watched some movies and looked at Black Friday ads.  We also had wine, good food, and good company!  It was a wonderful day!

October

October was the busiest month EVER!

It started out with the annual International Balloon Fiesta, one of our favorite events of the year!  This year we went twice....once in the evening for a Balloon Glow (they don't take off but light their burners at coordinated times so they all light up at once) and another in the early morning for a Mass Ascension (they all take off at the same time).  Josh and Aurora were even interviewed by the local news, although we never saw them air it.

The next weekend we went to the the kids' first airshow at Kirtland Air Force Base.  Alex was SO excited to see the big airplanes, jets and helicopters.  We got to see the Thunderbirds perform and it was amazing!  However, Alex did not realize how loud jets actually are and was a bit scared at first and covered his ears the whole time!

The weekend after that we went to McCalls' Pumpkin Patch with Megan and Sean!  We had a blast doing the various events there...checking out the 'old town', racing ducks and go karts, bouncing on the giant pumpkin pillow, etc.  We also had a great time going out to the pumpkin patch and picking out our pumpkins to carve!

After that we had Alex's 5th birthday, which I will do a separate post on.

Before we knew it, it was Halloween!  We carved pumpkins with Grandma S.  Both kids scooped out their own pumpkins this year and Aurora carved her own!  Alex drew his design and I carved it for him.  I think they came out great!

This year Aurora decided to reprise her jester costume, and Alex decided to be Megatron!!  With his current Tranformer obsession, I was not surprised.  We went to both Fall Festivals and the kids' schools, and on Halloween night we Trick or Treated both sets of grandparents and then went around Grandma and Grandpa K's neighborhood.  They got lots of good loot!

This month went buy in a flash!