Christmas and New Year

I'm sorry it has taken me so long to put a new post up. Things have been a little crazy and we were out of town for the holidays. We had our first official Christmas at home with just our little family. On Christmas Eve we made cookies for Santa and decorated them with lots of Sprinkle!! Then we opened our Christmas Eve Jammies and got all snuggly. Once we were nice and warm we read the Nativity Story from the bible. We didn't act it out this year because it is hard with just me and Elizabeth to be the actors while Doug reads the story. In years to come we will start that tradition. Neither one of the kids would go to bed that night...I guess even Andrew knew Santa was coming.

Christmas Morning was fun watching Elizabeth and Andrew open gifts and play with all their new toys. Elizabeth got her very own digital camera, so she doesn't break ours, and the Elmo Live doll. Andrew got a fun little basketball game that he loves to play with. After opening gifts Andrew and I went back to bed. :) Then Doug got to take his nap. Later in the afternoon Doug and Elizabeth went outside to play in the snow. The built a HUGE snowman that is still standing and they also went tubing with our wonderful neighbors! Elizabeth had a blast out there.

Then it was time to make Christmas dinner. We weren't doing anything too fancy because we were leaving the next morning for Arizona. We decided to make Milanesa...well, first we figured out we didn't have any oil in the house so Doug went out to the trailer to get some more and it was frozen. Then after he got the oil hot and ready to use we discovered that the meat was bad...so we ended up having fried chicken and mashed potatoes. :)

The day after Christmas we headed to Arizona at 4am! Well, it probably wasn't smart to head out that day because Doug had to drive for 6 hours in blizzard weather...it was horrible and very scary. But we finally made it to my parents house after a 11 1/2 hour drive. Thank goodness the kids slept most of the way.

The kids had a blast in AZ with their grandma and grandpa. Elizabeth loved being able to play outside every day. They were both spoiled rotten with their 2nd Christmas at Grandma's. We enjoyed the nice weather and played outside a lot. My sister came to visit for a couple days while we were there and it was fun to see how different our kids were (even at 2 weeks apart). We took the kids to a candy factory and did a little tour and then Elizabeth made a chocolate pizza with her cousin Austin. They made some yummy chocolates there.

I almost forgot...we also made a day trip down to Benson, AZ (by Tucson) to get a dog for Doug's parents. We picked the dog up in Gilbert and then drove it to Benson to meet Doug's parents and give them the dog to take home for a friend of theirs. This dog was the sweetest thing. Elizabeth kept calling it her dog and was going to share it with grandma and grandpa. Andrew loved the dog too. It was good to see everyone there...we miss them.

On New Year's Eve we put a fire in the pit outside and sat out there and roasted marshmallows and made s'mores. I think Doug was the only one that stayed up until midnight though and that was because he had to finish the 3rd Twilight book. On New year's day we went to White Tanks National Park down the street from my parents and went for a hike - that was fun! We all had a really good time with my family and didn't want to come back to the snow.