Christmas!

We made it to Randy's parents condo in Arizona on December 22nd.

I took this picture of my kiddos by our Christmas tree before we left, but thought I would throw it into the Christmas post for good measure.

 

 We had a fun couple of days before Christmas with them and Heidi and Doug's family. We spent Christmas eve at the temple looking at the lights and then headed to Heidi's house for dinner and some fun. 

Rick and Eileen had this cute little Christmas tree at their house. Alyssa made sure to knock it over and break some of their ornaments! I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it happened, but I felt bad nonetheless.

Here is what it looked like on Christmas eve before the kids went to bed.

 

Trying to get a good shot of them before bed proved difficult. They were excited for Santa to visit!

  

  Blurry pic, but we were excited to open presents in the morning. I'm kinda glad my no makeup face is blurry!

 

Lily waiting patiently on the stairs while daddy checks for signs of Santa's visit.

 

 Christmas morning was wonderful! Full of smiles, happy excitement and a lot of fun gift giving and receiving.

 It was Alyssa's first Christmas and she loved her happy brothers and sister around her.

 Tyler gave Grandpa a screw driver set that he bought with his own money. He also made Randy a gift. No gifts for his mother or grandmother....huh.

 Eileen opening her present from us. It was a super soft "minky" blanket. We all wanted to steal it. It was so so so so soft. I was sure she would love it.

After presents we had an amazing breakfast of eggs Benedict! We then had Christmas dinner at Heidi's in-laws. It was a really fun Christmas!

Dam

on December 20th we left our own little frozen tundra and headed to Arizona for Christmas.

 These are photos taken at our house before we left.

I have to admit that I may sort of  have a little bit of a height problem. That is, I have a fear of them. Well, not so much a fear of heights so much as a fear of falling. And it isn't so much a fear of myself falling as it is of this image I have in my head of one of my children leaping from my arms into an open abyss flailing and screaming as they fall to their death. Yep, it is an ongoing regular day-mare I have. 

 That being said, On our way to Arizona, we stopped to check out the Hoover Dam. It was, needless to say, extremely intense and traumatic for me.

I may have, uh...cried as my sweet family stood just inches away from instant death. Randy asked me to take some photos. I kind of freaked out when he took the baby from my safe distance from death only to stand at the edge and have the family smile for a "before" picture of the horrible accident that was (in my mind) sure to take place at any moment.  I mean, look how short those walls are! FYI There have not been any cases of accidental falls at the dam, but there have been a few suicides.

my boys

I wouldn't budge from this spot and I think I bruised my sweet baby from holding her so tight.Not funny to me. Hilarious to Randy.

Holding Jake close. Yes, I'm still crying.

We took the boring, Oh I mean, AWESOME tour of the dam.

The kids did think it was pretty fun and Randy found it quite interesting as well. I preferred the underground to the top of the dam.

Lily had been throwing up every couple of hours. (Isn't that the case in a family of 6? someone is always sick it seems). She stayed in the stroller with her "throw up bags" handy.

Yep, still not fun the second time around.

AHHHH! this image will be in my nightmares!

I'm honestly hoping will all I have that I will never have to visit the Hoover Dam aka the scariest place on earth ever again. I was glad to get going on the rest of our road trip. Maybe I should have had Randy write this post, I'm sure that his post would have been the total opposite of mine. Full of fun dam facts, full of dam jokes (you know what I mean) and a hilarious story about his irrational wife Heather and the dam crazy funny panic attack she had at the top.

Tyler's 9th Birthday!

I know I say this every single year, but WOW! time flies so fast! My sweet not so little Tyler turned nine on the 19th of December. He woke so excited that I had to take his picture.

It feels good to be nine!

He didn't have school that day either. It was our first day of winter break and he thought that was all kinds of awesome.  He invited his best friend Jack over and before we headed to uncle Ben's basketball game, we opened his one and only present.

Yep, it is his very first gun. A pellet gun actually. (Tooele must be rubbing off on us)

He loved it and only had a few minutes to admire it before we headed out for the basketball game.

Uncle Ben won the game, but I didn't take any photos for some reason. Jack had a good time as well. We got some free balls and Lily got a hat in a raffle that she LOVES. She also refused to give it to Tyler even though it was his birthday.

We weren't able to eat his birthday cake on his actual birthday, but I did make a cake and we ate it the next day. He wanted a 'Minecraft' cake. It is his favorite computer game and he even spent his own $30 to buy the game a few months ago. This is a 'creeper' from the game. Or, at least, my interpretation of it. hahaha. It was quite the fiasco getting the cake done. At one point Lily's elbow went through it (after it was frosted). Maybe you can tell on the bottom left hand side? It made Tyler happy so it was worth it in the end.

Tyler is sweet and caring and getting kinda crazy (in a nine-year-old kind of way). He makes us laugh. He is great at helping me out whether it is taking out the trash, getting a door for me or watching his little sisters. He is a wonderful blessing in our family. He adores reading, doing math problems, drawing comic strips, writing his novel on the computer and most of all, hanging out with friends and/or dad playing X-box games. He likes shooting now too! Happy Birthday Tyler! We love you to death honey!

FHE

For FHE on December 10th, we had our lesson on the Christmas story and read from Luke chapter 2. We also opened a present and it was the little people nativity. We used it to help the kids with the story. Afterwords, we made our own nativities using stickers. The kids had a blast! Hopefully they learned something as well.

Good times!

Aird Family Christmas!

Before we headed to Arizona for Christmas  (December 2nd), we had a little early Christmas get together with my parents, my sister Michelle and her family and my little brother Ben. Since Michelle's family had our family for Christmas and vice-verso, we wanted to do a gift exchange. It was really fun too. 

Grandma great giving Alyssa what she loves best! 

 Tyler with one of his gifts

 Tyler and cousin Will being goofy

 Lily with her barbie

 Jakey opening his present

I

I love this picture. My mom is an awesome grandma

Lily's First Ballet Recital

 Getting ready for the recital

 

She wanted me to take a picture of her "sparkly hair"

 Of course by the time we made it there, she had fallen asleep in the car! :)

 She awakened and was excited to dance on stage. It was The Nutcracker and she was a mouse

 Lily and her friend Gracen before the show.

 I had to take a picture of all the cute little girl coloring behind stage.

 so cute.

 Waiting to go onstage.

 Her class also played little snowflakes. They were adorable.

 Lily and Gracen in their snowflake costumes.

 We had quite the busy day leading up to the recital (I had to help get the ward Christmas party ready even though we were going to miss it). Anyway, in our hurry, we forgot to get Lily some daisies from Grandma and Grandpa Bremner. So, after the recital, I took Lily to the store and she picked out her own daisies, starburst candy AND redbox movie. It was the BEST! She asked me if she would get flowers after every recital and I told her "yes." She then replied "I just want to be on the stage FOREVER!" 

She seems to really like ballet when she isn't actually there. Every Tuesday when it is time for class she complains and says she hates it. But, her teacher says that Lily is the best in the class and does wonderfully when she is there! Crazy. She love love loved being on stage. We liked watching her too.