California Trip: Part 1

I have been dying to go to California for the past few years and finally had an opportunity to go, so we took it.  I used to live in Southern California as a nanny and I miss it soooo much!  My grandmother (my mother's mom) also lives there and I hadn't seen her in 6 or 7 years. She is 92 now and I really wanted to go see her.  The trip was so much fun.  Like any trip, we have a million pictures, so I will divide them over a few posts, but feel free to skip ahead to another post.  This is mostly just for our families sake. 

We left Colorado and drove straight to St. George, UT where my grandmother (on my dad's side) had recently moved to. It was really good to see her (even if she had only moved away a week before) and great to see her new place.  The next day we hit the road bright and early and traveled to California and stayed with one of my friends Rachel (love her!).  While we were in southern Cali, we took the opportunity to go to the San Diego Zoo.  

 Brooklyn all ready to go!

 Checking out the elephants

 The peacock was trying to find some lunch

 Sawyer playing hid-n-seek with the tree

 Sawyer was the pilot of the helicopter

We walked around the Zoo all day and Sawyer choose to walk the whole time.  He didn't want to ride in the stroller.  I was impressed that he could walk so much!  Even Tyler and I were sick of walking. He really loved the animals and had a great time. 

  The next day we went to Coronado Island with my friend Rachel, her husband Brandon, and their two kids, Gid and Stella.  This was the first our kids had ever been to the Ocean.  They loved it!

 Having fun with Daddy!

 Soooo pretty!

 Mmmm... sand tastes good!

I miss it already.  California is so beautiful and was such a nice change from the cold Colorado weather.  It was definitely strange seeing people walking around in shorts and tank tops in January. 

Christmas 2011

We had a lot of fun with Christmas this year!  Sawyer was very excited about it and talked about Santa all the time.  The cutest thing would happen when we drove around with Christmas music on.  Sawyer kept shouting out "I want Jingle Bells", and when I would sing it for him, he would sing along.  Seems like that was his favorite song this year.  He got tons of presents and loved them all!  

The presents Santa left him (before Sawyer saw them)

Santa even made a little choo-choo train out of candy for Sawyer.  Trains are by far his favorite thing right now.

Brooklyn's presents from Santa

Our massive Christmas tree.  It is hard to tell from the picture, but it was about 10 feet tall. Guess that's what happens when you leave it up to mom to pick the tree- she picks the biggest one!

Santa enjoyed his cookies and milk

Brooklyn bright and cheery as always on Christmas morning

Showing off his stocking

Checking out Sawyer's new wooden train set

Grandma York sent lanterns for all of us

Brooklyn got "Miss Rumphius" from Autie Mo

Opening presents from Auntie Shirley 

Playing with her new sock monkey from Auntie Shirley

Sawyer got a book from Grandma York

Santa brought Daddy some glass bottles of coke.  Sawyer wanted to try them out. (Sawyer even said "Coke!" not sure how he knows that word, musta been daddy who taught him)

We all had a wonderful time and are grateful for the chance we have to celebrate our Savior's birth. We missed all our family who is not close to us and hope everyone else had a very Merry Christmas also. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

As always, we had a big feast at my Grandmothers house here in Colorado Springs.  This year was a little bitter sweet for us all in my family.  My grandmother has lived here in Colorado Springs for as long as I can remember.  She moved here a year before we did, 25 years ago.  My grandpa passed away a few years ago, and my uncle, who lives with her has a lot of health problems.  After going to St. George for our family reunion this year, she decided to move down there.  We have more family down in that area and my uncle Mike does much better in the warmer weather.  My grandma's house is a beautiful home that has SO many memories in it for all of her kids, grandkids, and great grandkids.  This was our last hoorah at her home.  I am so sad to see her go, but know that things change and life moves on.  She is a great example to me and I will miss having her so close to us.  I hope someday to be as amazing as she is.  Go figure, I didn't take ANY pictures at Thanksgiving dinner.  We had at least 50 people there again, which is always so fun.  This year I couldn't be more grateful for my family.  I have a HUGE, wonderful, loving family and feel so lucky.  AND, I have two wonderful children and a loving husband that I couldn't be happier to get to spend eternity with.  Boy am I lucky!  So sorry for the lack of pictures in the post, but I am very grateful for the blessings in my life and no picture could ever show that anyway.  Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well!  

The grandma in me...

Since I started working the graveyard shift at work, my life has been pretty crazy!  I am not loving it, but hey, it pays the bills, right?  Work can get pretty slow in the middle of the night, so I decided I needed to find a new hobby.  I went to the library, found a book, and taught myself how to crochet.  Then, thanks to Pinterest (which I am officially obsessed with), I found some awesome patterns and discovered the Grandma inside of me. Here are my latest creations...

( I made another monster hat for my co-workers little boy- isn't he the cutest!)

I have never felt very crafty so I was a bit skeptical that I could learn.  Knowing how amazing MY grandmother is I knew it had to be in me somewhere.  At least it keeps me busy! :)

October snow!

This year we had snow on October 7th.  A LITTLE early if you ask me.  Maybe that just means winter will get over sooner next year.  Doubt it though!  I think I need a trip to Hawaii!

 Looks like someone else isn't happy about the snow!

Just kidding!  She is ALWAYS happy! :)

Uh oh....

Move over dad!

This girl knows who is in charge.... 

Halloween 2011

For Halloween this year we took Sawyer to the Trunk-or-Treat at our church and then took him out for about two streets in our neighborhood.  He had a great time.  Although he didn't really understand why he was wearing a costume, he LOVED that people would give him candy.  (I swear this kid takes after me, he is OBSESSED with candy.) He also LOVED helping me pass the candy out when the kids came to our door.  We had a ton of kids again just like last year.  I think last year we went through 11 bags of candy, so this year I was prepared.  I think I got something like 3000 pieces, and we used it all! It was a lot of fun for all of us.  We didn't get a lot of pictures, but at least here are our two cute kids in costume!

It is impossible to get two kids smiling in the same picture!