Feliz Navidad

Star of Wonder

On Wednesday night Dylan, Cadence & I went to the Star of Wonder Christmas play at First Assembly Church. We met up with my mom, sister & nephew and niece. We have gone the last few years...it really is a amazing play. They don't hold back with any of the production of it.

human christmas tree choir and flying angels


nativity scene

Before the show started the kids were dancing and being silly to the live music playing. :)

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I don't necessarily care for "mega" churches and what the money they have is usually used towards. But I do have to say that I have respect for this church and how giving they are. All money raised from the play (after expenses) is given as outreach for tangible needs of the community.

Every day they feed 9,000 people and house over 300!

Brings A Smile

Having the lights on the tree and house always brings a warm feeling inside. There is thankfulness and excitement for giving of gifts. I really love the Christmas season.

We decorated a tree last week and Dylan did most of the decorating work this year. Cadence helped a little but for some reason she was worried about hooking them on the tree herself.

Isabelle was interested for about 2 minutes and then found more exciting things to play with :)

The tree turned out beautiful and is filled with lots of ornament memories!

We also have our lights up outside and our new addition this year~reindeer!

Merry Christmas!

I Wanna Wish you a Merry Christmas

Good times :)

Garden Bliss

On Sunday afternoon we took a tour of some gardens in our neighborhood. I was so inspired! Some were simple, others were perfectly amazing. I really enjoyed to know that so many people in our area are doing gardens and raising chickens for eggs. The kids loved it as well. :)

The picture below was of Dylan playing with the cat. He kept asking if we could get some animals, especially chickens. I of course answered quickly "yes" and Mark returned with, "uh, I don't think so".

At the end of the tour they had a picnic at the last garden. Fresh chicken soup (from ingrediants & chickens from the farms that we had been at), salad & fresh lemon bars made again by the lemons from someones house. All of it was so wonderful, natural!! I loved every part of it.

I definatly came home with plans of making raised garden beds and trying to figure out how to corral off a part of our yard for chickens. This spring I think our backyard with be transformed! And like other things in life, Mark will one day realize he loves having chickens as well. He is always good about supporting my crazy ideas. :)

Star Wars Birthday

We also had a birthday party for Dylan's good friend Thomas over the weekend. We met in our old neighborhood and have stayed friends! The boys love to play together and they both especially like Star Wars...in fact Thomas is the one who introduced him to what Star Wars even was. :)

They had Star Wars games with light sabers & balloons.

I can't believe that no one hit each other.

They also had pod races. All the kids had so much fun!

And Cadence was invited as well. She played with Ella (Thomas' sister). They found a branch that was low enough to hang from. They definatly aren't "girly girls", you can tell they have older brothers. :)

The weather was perfect to be outdoors and Thomas had a great 6th Birthday.

Cow Farm Fun

On Saturday evening we went to Superstition Farm in Mesa. It is a dairy farm and they have holiday fun on the weekend. We went with the Whittemores. It was good to be out together and the kids all had so much fun!

We had gooey smores

There were hay bails set up and I think cotton in the middle for the kids to jump into. I think this was their favorite thing.

The girls got their faces painted like butterflies. :)

And of course, Eli was content and along for all the fun.

Dylan was a big help for the girls getting up to be able to jump down in the hay area. By the end Maggie was brave enough to jump from the high side, but Cadence stayed comfortable from the lower jump off.

We had a hay ride around the farm.

And there was a petting zoo. Dylan was afraid to let them eat from his hand but did let the goats and calfs eat from the cup and of course Cadence was scared to go anywhere near any animals including the sweet rabbit.

It was a fun night and with something we have never done before!