Are you Ready for This?

Ok, so these aren't in order, but who cares? Hope you enjoy a brief glimpse of our ten day vacation with Robert's family in beautifully, wonderfully warm Arizona this Christmas!A three generation picture of Robert's mom, his sister Lisa and her new baby Luke

Our first Sunday in Hyder, Robert's younger brother Kurtis was ordained an elder

These two are family pictures taken by Kayla, Robert's older sister who has really gotten into photography this last year. The blue sky and dried fields made a gorgeous background, I think!

The groups of families

These are all the stockings Robert's mom has crosstitched for all of us. Each of the kids and their spouse has a full stocking and the grandkids have just a topper. It was alot of stockings and even more work hanging up on that wall!

Riding home from church. I don't remember how we got them laughing, but this picture of Robert and Kayla's daughter, Gracie was just too cute!!

Sammy hanging out with "Pa Pa"

Lisa's husband Eric with his very unhappy little boy. It was so fun to get to meet little Luke so soon after his arrival on Dec. 3rd.

One of our last nights at the Skousens'. The girls decided to make some (ok, alot!) yummy homemade candy including chocolate dipped pretzels, peanut butter cups, mounds and almond joys, chocolate dipped fudge and caramels. So so good! (Yes, I was pretending to take a bite for the picture; I wasn' caught sneaking a bite)

Sammy loungin' in his new Cars chair

One day we went out to the desert where a lady had made designs in the dirt using colored glass and rocks and we hiked around. Here is another three generations picture with the boys.

Uncle Eric letting Sam throw rocks into a concrete holding tank. (Isn't that sky just gorgeous!)

For Christmas, Robert's mom bought everyone paintball guns. You can imagine how much fun there was to be had with four paintball guns, 8,000 paintballs, a 50 lb tank of CO2 and six guys!

Sammy playing with the train he got from Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas.

So the really big part of Christmas this year was the surprise we came up with for my mother-in-law. She has been working really hard on building a new house (see pictures below) and was a little disappointed that her house wasn't done for Christmas. But the guys worked really hard and put all the hardwood flooring in the days leading up to Christmas. So on Christmas Eve, after she had gone to bed, we took all the presents, the couches and chairs, and the stockins and set up Christmas down at the new house with the new Christmas tree she bought for the house. I really think it meant alot to her to have all of us there together in her new house and it was fun to give her such an unexpected surprise!

Robert nailing the floorboards in

Kayla's husband Adam working his magic with cutting the floorboards.

Too cute, huh? Sam had so much fun on this trip with his cousins and aunts and uncles that many times we would have to put on a movie to help him settle down for bed at night. This DVD player that we got for free was a life saver for our 15 hour drive each way! (I think he watched Cars about 8 times!)

So that's it! We had a great Christmas and were so glad to be able to visit the Skousens. We hope you had a wonderful Christmas as well! Stay tuned for Robert's new years birthday coming up!