|{ New Years In Arizona }|

After Utah we flew down to Arizona to spend New Years with my family!

The day after we got there we woke up to the smell of bacon and my Dad slamming doors downstairs to wake us up. Jon says 'Whose mad?'. I smile and say, 'No one! IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!' So we headed downstairs for our fake Christmas!

Traditional Christmas breakfast!

The envelope on the tree started our treasure hunt for our gifts! It was a blast!!

The gift we got for my Dad! This was a once in a lifetime find! We bought it back in there summer and we were so excited to give it to him!

Looking at my Mom in awe!

He loved it! Yay!

On New Years Eve we played this fun marathon game thing. We had 3 different games going and every 2 minutes we would rotate down the table and end up on a different game. It was really fun!

Sparkling cider with rock candy to color it! Fun!

We did a boil! SO spicy! We were all dying!

We went to the Mesa Temple to see the Christmas lights! Dad brought hot cocoa for everyone, it was hot apparently. I love candid shots! :)

Also it was raining, so I used our little point-and-shoot again. Apparently the Christmas lights this year did not want good photos taken of them. 

Funny sign!

And we got to see the Rainwaters!! Gosh I miss them!

My sister graciously took some photos of Jon and I! :)

For our 5 year wedding anniversary we duplicated some of our wedding photos! 

Other things we didn't take photos of: We made sushi for my Dad and everyone tried it! Mom even liked it! Woohoo!! We made Italian for everyone! We played Dr. Mario!

|{ Christmas In Utah }|

For Christmas we spent a week in Utah with Jonathan's family! It was so fun to be able to spend the time with them. We had a wonderful Christmas and we miss them all already!

We were babysitting Ethan while everyone else went to see The Hobbit (since we had already seen it) and after running around for a bit he had fun watching his uncles play Smash Bros. 

On Christmas Eve we had our Italian dinner:

Figuring the cooking schedule for the day!

Risotto for Aranchini

Angela was a HUGE help!! (So was Mom!! THANK YOU!)

What the boys did while we cooked

Homemade Ragu....Yummmmm

Baked pasta!

Rosemary for the foccacia

Aranchini

Starving!!!

Dad didn't like the Orzo so much! :)

And after dinner?? Back to video games! Seriously, these two did this all week! It was actually pretty endearing since Ben just got back from his mission. He was definitely missed by his big brother!

Christmas morning:

SNOW!!!

 

Ethan opening his legos from us!

Angela gave us a 'Totally Useless Card. This card gave us 0 presents,' Haha! She's so funny!

After presents mess!

The boys played ping pong

We watched.

We got to meet Kallie!! We were sad she wasn't there in person but Skype is the next best thing! :)

And we even got to see Temple Square!

p.s. My photo and editing skills have completely gone out the window this year (assuming I had any to begin with)

Things we didn't get photos of.. :(... We got to see my brother and his wife!! They made us an awesome Christmas Ham dinner!! YUM!! It was so awesome to see them! We also went to The Pie and met up with my bestie Mercede and her boyfriend there! I miss her to pieces! She was looking as beautiful as ever of course. 

Things we ran out of time to do: See Madame Baigue (which I REALLY REALLY wanted to do), sledding (both time and lack of proper snow apparel kept us from this), and there were other friend who I had hoped to see as well. Alas, a week is not enough time and when you only get to spend once a year with your family, that time is precious. I love you all and I'm sorry I couldn't see you! 

Next Up: Our week in Arizona!