December in Arizona

After Thanksgiving, then its time to get ready for Christmas. That means shopping, decorating and trying to find a picture for the infamous Christmas card (which did not happen this year)! We did however find a fantastic Christmas tree at Home Depot. It was beautiful and every time we lit it up Amelia called it "Happy". She would come down in the morning and point to it and say, "Happy?" and that meant she wanted the lights turned on.

Here is our Christmas Tree!

Christmas also means baking and Amelia really enjoyed making sugar cookies this year.

She wanted every last drop off those beaters.

This picture is from October, but it makes me happy. I had to bring treats to an Activity Girls function and I made that Karo Syrup chex mix with the M&Ms. The lady was not home when I dropped it off so I left it on the porch with Amelia while I ran to get some paper out of the car to leave a note. When I came back, there was Amelia helping herself!

We have spent some fun times at the school behind our house. Amelia loves this red swing and the slides. She is quite fearless about slides!

She also likes attempting to get to the drinking fountain.

Here Amelia was helping Dad finish up the closet in the guest room. It is going to be great for storage of all kinds, but we promise to leave you some room for clothes when you visit.

We have enjoyed hiking the trails behind our house. Amelia is a good little hiker...albeit slow and easily distractable.

This was taken right before Thanksgiving. I took her to the store because I could not get her to go to sleep for her nap and of course she crashed in the car on the way, so here she is in Sam's Club modeling their child sleeping bags!

We Are Thankful For The Thanksgiving Season

November was a fantastic month as well. For the first time in a while we did not have plans to go to Utah, instead Utah was coming to us. Oma and Opa came for Thanksgiving, and after a logical discussion with Uncle Chris we talked him and Kara into tagging along. Mark, Kimmi and Spencer also came with alterier motives, but we got them nonetheless and loved it! Alan's bathroom reno was in high gear in hopes of finishing prior to the guest arrival, however we were delayed waiting for the countertop. I continued loving my time with Amelia who continued to astonish us with new words and skills (she climbs now). It was a great month to be thankful for friends, family, jobs and what still feels like a new life in Arizona.

We attended the AZ State Fair with Alan's cousin and his family. Amelia enjoyed the butterfly house where we were able to feed butterflies with cotton swabs.

Our up close and personal encounter with the monarch.

There was also a crazy petting zoo at the fair. One giant pen with all kinds of animals running amok with all the children that wanted in. Amelia initially liked it, but many of the animals were bigger than her and that intimidated her after awhile. Here she is with the goat.

And the black "baa-baa".

And the potbelly pigs.

While Alan has been working a lot on the bathroom, Amelia has wanted to help out. Her main job is to pull all the plastic gloves out of the box.

She also helps Mom in the kitchen with the mopping.

It has cooled down to a pleasant temperature to be outside. We enjoyed our Arizona living with a little Sunday hike.

Amelia claimed this mountain as her own!

The joys of self-feeding. She was preparing herself for the Thanksgiving feast!

She continues to love shoes, her own and other peoples. Here she is modeling Dad's shoes.

We loved having family in for Thanksgiving and hope they felt at home. Now that the bathroom is truly complete we hope they will come on back...as well as any of the rest of you who want to escape for a time to sunny AZ.

October 2011

The month of October was busy! Alan continued to work on the guest bathroom renovations. We flew to Utah for General Conference. Lindsay settled into her new calling in the Primary. Amelia continued to get bigger and smarter. She is a true joy!

Amelia modeling a pumpkin mask of Grandma Hill's.

Halloween weekend was packed with parties. But for the actual night of Halloween, Alan sat in the driveway with his new fire pit and passed out candy to the kids while I took Amelia trick-or-treating around the block. Unfortunately Alan took the pictures so you can't see him in his element.

We had multiple Halloween events requiring us to dress up. We decided to go as Peace and Quiet. Amelia is our little lamb!

We attended a Birthday Halloween party for Amelia's good friend across the street who turned 2. The grandparents came in and made amazing Mexican food for the event. Additionally they had a bouncy house and this life-size pinata of Snow White. It felt wrong to encourage the kids to beat Snow White. Alan even agreed and he is usually anti-princess.

The ward Trunk-Or-Treat. They served root beer floats, delicious. Amelia gave up here headband ears about half way into it and this was a convenient place to keep track of them.

Ah, our little sheep.She was not sure about the costume at first, but it grew on her. As we went around the block trick-or-treating and she realized she got candy, she even started baa-ing at people.