I found the pictures that I was talking about later in the blog, here is our awesome Christmas party experience!!!

Blessed

We are so blessed as a family and are grateful for all that we have this year! We are looking forward to Christmas with family this year, and are excited that our kids are getting big enough to understand a little bit about Christmas. We had a funny experience last Saturday! We got the kids all excited a bout the Ward Christmas Party and got them all ready and told them they were going to go see Santa and have some fun. They were so happy until we pulled up to the Church. They thought they had been scammed, and Maddock exclaimed, "This is not a party, this is church". He proceeded to throw a tantrum from there and we ended up having a horrible time trying to get the kids to behave and realize it was supposed to be fun. I was going to post the resulting picture with Santa, but it looks like Bethany deleted it. It consisted of me holding Maddock and him hiding himself with his hands and on my shoulder, and then Jaylee clinging for dear life on Bethany, and then Bethany and I smiling like everything was just great!

We have had a lot of fun going for rides in the car almost every night to look at Christmas lights! We are so excited for Christmas, and anyone that knows Maddock knows that there was no better place for us to take pictures than on the railroad tracks (the kid loves trains!). Below are some of the pictures we took!

Christmas 2010

Here are some pictures from the past year, just a few of my favorites!

It's the holiday season and I'm very grateful this year! Many may have heard that we had layoffs at UOP and it was a tough day on Monday. We lost some very good people and we will miss them. My thoughts and prayers are with them and their families. Thanksgiving hit hard the Monday after this year and I am very grateful to have a job. I'm grateful for all of my employees and am glad that they were not affected. I am so grateful for my family, nothing beats coming home everyday and seeing the kids going crazy with excitement that I am finally home! I love this picture of Jaylee, I just found it and even though it's a little old it looks appropriate for the season!!! I am so grateful for faith and for the church and for our Savior Jesus Christ. I am so glad that we get to celebrate His birth at this time of year, and I am looking forward to Christmas and spending time with the family. I am so glad we have family close by and that it's not too far to go visit. We had a great Thanksgiving in Snowflake, although I was surprised it snowed on us! I was all prepared to go golfing over the break, obviously that did not happen! Larry and I watched football and basketball all day Thursday and Friday, and every team we rooted for lost! I'm grateful for good friends and for our good ward here in Queen Creek. I just got called to work with the Teacher's Quorum and am having a great time with them. We have good kids in the ward, and good people.

Merry Christmas everyone, let the 25 day countdown begin!!!