Christmas and Graham's Birthday in Arizona

The boys and I started our holiday break by driving out to Arizona on the morning of the 22nd. They were so good on the trip and were thrilled to have Grandma, Grandpa and Maren's family waiting for them. The boys started the trip out right with some Mentos geysers.

Friday night we picked Matt up at the airport and went to Old Country Buffet in honor of my dad's 60th birthday. He for some reason is very passionate about this joint however the rest of us were not quite as impressed! After our delicious dinner we headed over to the Mesa Temple light.

Then it was back to the house so dad could open his present. We contacted long time friends and family members and compiled a book full of pictures and highlights of my dad's life. It was really fun to make and turned out fantastic!

Christmas eve began with getting my dad's tractor ready for our trailer ride that night. The rest of the day was spent outside preparing luminaries, riding quads chatting it up and just enjoying a beautiful day.

Then it was time to light the candles

Little pyro!

Grandma and sweet baby Drew

I love luminaries on Christmas Eve. It is honestly the best part of Christmas and always seems so magical to me! This was our first Christmas home in four year since my little Graham made us miss our last turn with my family. It has actually been 6 years since my parents had all of us home because Christian was on a mission before that. Needless to say, we all really enjoyed spending the holidays together!

The tractor ride and caroling were a really big hit!

Sadly this is the only picture I have of Christmas morning. We had church at 9 so things were a little crazy!

Monday morning we all went to the zoo. Graham was just old enough to ride the camel with the big boys and he LOVED it!

The big boys also got to do the "polar slide"

That afternoon we celebrated Graham's 2nd birthday with my family and Matt's parents. He is not a huge cake fan so we opted for a donut hole cake this year.

Poor guy, it is so hard to have a birthday right after Christmas. He still enjoyed himself but we may have to work out a system as he gets older. He did get the new Winnie the Pooh movie for his birthday, mostly because I love it too. Seriously, if you haven't seen it you must. So cute and funny. Tuesday morning, Graham's actually birthday, we went to the park as a family and then hit up Bahama Bucks before Matt headed back across the desert. Maren't family left for Utah that morning too so the boys and I had a nice mellow afternoon together. We rode their new scooters to feed the horses (one of Graham's most favorite things to do).

Then it was his favorite, spaghetti, for dinner and an early bedtime. I did snap a few pictures of my parents house for those of you who were wanting to see it. Everything looks so beautiful and it was so nice to have that space when we were all together.

The next morning we got up early and hopped on a plane to Utah.