Bella, Gabe and Josiah

After our night in Sedona, my parents drove the kids up to meet us. We wandered Sedona and got some lunch before driving up to the Grand Canyon. Gabe got to meet Mark Twain. He also got to try a lemon for the first time, which was fun... Gabe was pretty cranky when we got up to the Grand Canyon, so we stayed in the hotel and watched a movie. Yep, we are hip, happening people who spend New Year's Eve stuck in a hotel room with a cranky baby... The next day, we got up and actually went to the Grand Canyon. Gabe was so impressed that he fell asleep every time we were looking at the Canyon. At least the rest of us enjoyed it!                

Pat and I have now been married for three years, yet we have managed to only be together for one of those anniversaries... This year he flew back home to work while I stayed down here with the kids for another week. So, last week, we left the kids with Gram and Gramps (the first time we've ever left Gabe!) and went to Sedona for a night. Actually, it almost didn't happen. Gabe had gotten the same cold that I had, so he wasn't feeling good all week, but it wasn't too bad. Thursday night, however, he has a fever most of the night. Somehow leaving a sick baby with Gram didn't seem very nice, particularly since Gramps had the same cold... I'd been texting with the pediatrition and she told me to take him in if he got a high fever. Gabe's wasn't too high, but I wanted to know if we should leave him, so we ended up at Urgent Care. The first thing they did was to tape a pulseox to his foot to check his oxygen saturation. Um, for all of his doctor visits, the la...

My brothers (and their wives) may have left, but that doesn't mean that the fun all had to stop! Several of my cousins live here (or were visiting for Christmas) so we all got together for an evening at the train park. I think that we had 12 kids ranging in age from 13 to 3 months. It was a bit crazy... All the little girls just loved Gabe. It's a good thing that he doesn't mind getting passed around... Remy told me that she wants to keep him, so I'm not allowed to take him home. I'm not sure that her parents would be quite so excited about their 5-year-old bringing home a baby... The next night we went to Zoolights. I'd never been to one before and it was a bit strange to be at the zoo and not see any actual animals, but the lights were rather impressive. Bella nearly got eaten by a crocodile... They had some incredible lego exhibits too.   On Friday, we had lunch at the American Girl store. That may be every little girls dream. The look on Bella's face whe...

We only had three days where the whole family was around, so we tried to make the most of them. The first thing that we did on Monday was to take family pictures. I don't have a single picture of that (the actual photographer was taking those pictures...) but I do have pictures of the lunch that we all went to afterwards. Gabe was rather board and decided to practice his funny faces. Meanwhile, Bella was having fun at the other end of the table making silly snapchat videos with her aunts and uncles... After a low key afternoon, we all bundled up to watch the finals of the Family Ping Pong Tournament. Gramps and Seth had borrowed a table for the occasion. We take ping pong very seriously in our family... Seth was the champion yet again. He has now won it for the last three championships. I think that Matt and Nathan are going to need to practice some more so that we have a new champion next time... --------------------------------------- Tuesday morning, the boys all went golfing, s...

Merry Christmas from Arizona! We're all down in Arizona at my parents house for Christmas. Both of my brothers and their wives flew in also (plus my sister and brother-in-law that live here), so the whole family is here for a few days. It's been a lot of fun to all be here together, even if we only have a few days. Christmas itself was a lot of fun. The kids all got pjs from Gram and Gramps on Christmas Eve, so we ended up with some cute little elves. (Bella didn't really want the matching pjs with the boys...) Is there a better place to sleep on Christmas Eve??? We always have to have a kid picture in front of the tree. Bryson must have been asleep or something, because he missed the picture... Later in the morning, Grandpa Claus and Grandma Claus (Bryson's other grandparents) stopped by with presents. Plus, I finally got my Santa Claus picture! We went for a walk through the wash Christmas afternoon. Facebook reminded me that four years ago our Christmas walk was acro...