Christmas morning with a one year old is a real treat!! Santa brought big D a little tikes basketball hoop and all morning Dallen was all about the balls he got, not just basketballs, but footballs too :)
"Where's the ball?" Another one of Dallen's favorite gifts was not actually his. He was so intrigued by Uncle Scotty's new skateboard...

Eventually Uncle Scotty wanted his present back and got something else to distract Dallen, unfortunately it was not quite as, well, stable!!
This picture looks so sad, but its totally funny because he was not hurt at all :)
Of course he got lots of other presents like cars and trains and candy and clothes, etc...I love this picture, it just says "Hey Mom, what'd I get?"Sometimes he wasn't interested in presents at all and just wanted to play with the dog. I call this the 'dancing with the dog' sequence:

All in all it was a fantastic Christmas morning full of lots of joyful faces, like this one...Later that afternoon we went to my Grandma's house as we always do for more gifts and a yummy lunch. However, this year was extra special. I asked my Grandpa if I could sing a Christmas song before we opened presents. I wanted to take the opportunity, as Elder Bednar counseled, to share my testimony with my family. It got the whole family started and everyone took a turn sharing their thoughts and feelings regarding the holiday spirit. There was not a dry eye in the room. It was a Christmas I will not soon forget. Hope you all had a Christmas as merry as mine :)

For those of you who don't already know, a few months ago my Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. This was what caused my seemingly "random" trip to California back in October, to spend more time with the man that we love in what was a hard time for the family. Just a week before Christmas, he opted to have surgery to remove the cancerous cells from his body. Our family Christmas this year was just a little more low key and a bit laid back for his recovery but we were all so happy to accommodate. Just so this year for Christmas we could receive the greatest gift of all, a clean bill of health for our Father. Today he is cancer free and feels healthy as a horse. We are so happy to have the head of our family back to his jolly old self and wish to have him for MANY more Christmases to come. And for this New Years we are wishing you and yours a happy and HEALTHY new year!!

We wish you a Merry Christmas!!




We are on our way to California to spend some time with these beautiful people.Maybe this trip will be somewhat like the last...
Giggling with Auntie Aubrey



Bubbles with Uncle ScottyOr perhaps just loving on Mimi and Grandpa
Who knows? All I know is that I am happy we will all be together. Hope you have a wonderful holiday season with the people you love most!! Merry Christmas from our family to yours :)

A few months ago we took these adorable pictures of Dallen in a red adirondack chair in my parents backyard.




I had this great idea to somewhat recreate this photo shoot, and set up Dallen’s cute red chair in front of our Christmas tree while D was all dressed up. The result, not what I expected but cute nonetheless…We thought we'd give a distraction a tryHe was trying to put his ball in the treeHe looks terrified or completely irritated in this picture, not sure, but funny!!We got a couple really good candid ones too...

The other night we went over to the Curry's to make gingerbread houses with the kiddies and friends. It was so much fun and a big sucess!All the kids had so much fun and ate way too much candy:

Dallen found the frosting
Parker was my favorite with this little bowl of M&M's his face was covered in chocolate

Stanton showing his Daddy exactly how much candy he was eating
Noelle was my little buddy all night

The hostess with the mostest, Kimmie
Here's our crew with their fabulous houses
It was an almost perfect evening with lots of fun and many laughs, especially when I ruined it all and sat on Kimmie's poor little house!!Thanks for a super fun night making gingerbread houses and making memories!!