To finish off the year...

We wanted to take advantage of the 70+ degree weather, so we headed out to this cool train park in Scottsdale. It was a lot of fun, but I apparently didn't get any pictures of any trains...we did see some! But there were some really fun playgrounds as well and that's where we spent most of our time! I'm loving this Arizona winter so far! Can you believe that this was the day after Christmas and we were in shorts??

 

We were also lucky to have our good friends, The Widdisons, come visit us from UT. We headed over to the Natural History Museum...

And took a trip to the zoo on New Year's eve.

We love playing with the Widdisons and are glad they made time for us!

Christmas Low Down!

We had a surprise visit from Ol' St. Nick on Christmas Eve. It was so nice of him to make an appearance knowing how busy he is! Thanks, Santa!

The bounty

The unwrapping

We gave in this Christmas and got the kids a Wii. Well, we were the best parents ever and it was the best Christmas ever! This year will be hard to top! It was a lot of fun and they were completely surprised...which is the best fun for us parents. Grandparents, aunts and uncles were all so very generous as well. Thanks, everyone...a great Christmas was had by all.

And here's a picture just for Grandma Cindy!

 Thanks for the cute hat!

9 Months

Milly turned 9 months a few days before Christmas and we took a few pictures of her while we were waiting for the Dr. at her check up...not the best lighting, but I thought these were pretty funny anyway. And you can see just how chunky she is! And, of course, James had to get in on the fun, too!

 9 Month stats

19 lbs, 13 oz (75%)

27 1/2" (50%)

Head 17 1/4 cm (50%)

She seems to be keeping more on track with Dylan's size (he's more on the normal scale instead of the smaller scale the other three are on!) It has been a busy month for our little Milly-moo! She began sitting up, crawling and cut her first 2 teeth (bottom ones). She loves to eat food and is especially interested in whatever her mom or dad are eating at the time! She is a still a happy-go-lucky kiddo and we are just getting used to having another kid on the move. She can usually be found with some paper or other small object in her mouth, she is very adept at finding things to suck on and it is hard to keep the floor free of debris with all these kids around! We find we are vacuuming more often, but the 5 kids are still winning on that front! Milly still loves blowing raspberries and is getting good at mocking us, much to the kids' delight. They all love taking turns shaking their heads, blowing raspberries, and growling at her so she will do it in return. She's not being a very good sleeper these days. She is getting up 2-3 times a night still and is very stubborn when we try to let her "cry it out" for a little while. It's getting really old and I don't know how to fix this...and I'm too tired to try! Besides that, she is just so much fun and we couldn't imagine life without her!

Here are a couple of other photo shoots for your viewing pleasure.

Tub Time

Growing tired of the paparazzi mom! She would hardly give me the time of day!

Once upon a December (thus far)

Someone learned a new trick!

Yep, she's sitting up! Ain't she cute?

We went and saw the Christmas lights at the Mesa temple.

 

Beautiful and inspiring...it also helped that we didn't have to bundle up and freeze our booties off! Did you know that the Mesa temple does not have an Angel Moroni statue on top? Apparently, it was modeled after the Temple of Solomon and the plans did not call for one...interesting tidbit. There are 2 other temples built about the same time that also do not have Moroni atop...what are they?

The sweet kindergarten teachers had a party for all the families in their classes. It was fun to go to Dylan's class and make crafts and eat cookies. Teachers are the best...I can really tell that these teachers love the kids and what they do. What a blessing to have such great teachers!

 

They were doing some work at the park at the end of our cul-de-sac and had this big pile of rocks delivered. James was in little boy heaven climbing, sliding and rolling down the mound. What more could a little boy want? It has me convinced that I need a big pile of dirt or sand in my backyard someday for the kids play on. It's the best!

 

And finally, (at least before all the Christmas festivities) Dylan got an award at school.

 

You can see him in the red shirt right in the middle of the picture. It was a "Celebrate Learning" award. According to his teacher, Mrs. Sears, he earned this award for "growing and improving in all areas of Kindergarten (socially and academically) And for always giving 100% effort."  We are so proud of him and how well he is doing in school. He's such a great kid!