A Very Merry Christmas!

We were so excited to spend an entire week with the Allen's for Christmas! We started the trip out right by going to the BYU vs. ASU basketball game in the Glendale Arena. Crew loved being in the big stadium and although the Cougs had a tough loss, it was so much fun!

Crew loves singing and cheering so I believe this was a "Go Cougars" arm raise

One of the reasons we were most excited to go home was to see Katherine! We have missed her so much over here in L.A. We are so thrilled that she Devin are engaged and getting married March 20! We love them both and Crew was in heaven having Katherine around again!

Go Cougars!

The kids in their Sunday best before church. These are Matt's sister Jeni's kids minus her third son Tate. Crew loved having his cousins around and this is really the first time he has been old enough to really interact. We just need to live closer to each other because they all got along great, for the most part :)!

Monday morning we all loaded up and went for a hike in the White Tank Mountains by the Allen's house. Dave must have been doing something inappropriate because my camera blurred his face but the rest of the group looks pretty tough!

We always tease the Allen's about the "waterfall hike" but with all the rain Arizona has had lately it was actually flowing a bit! The desert is so beautiful out there and it was just a great day to be out and enjoying Arizona beauty! This is Crew and Grandpa looking at the waterfall.

Kind of scary, but here is our rugged family.

Another group shot in the canyon by the waterfall
What a happy boy!


One significant event on Christmas Eve was talking to my brother Christian in Taiwan! My parents were in Arkansas and Maren was in Utah but we all got to talk on a conference call for about an hour and had a blast! He is doing great and will be coming hom the end of June now (darn those extensions!) It was a wonderful Christmas present to kind of all be together even though we were all so far apart!

This shot is on Christmas Eve. Becky has these bells that each kid gets to hold and ring, on cue, to play Christmas songs. It was really fun and Crew is a really big bell fan!

The Bell Orchestra

A darling pic of the happy couple

Last picture before Santa comes!!!

And man did Santa deliver! Crew was so excited about his new bike that he has been telling us about for months! Even though Santa could only find a red bike on Craig's list, Crew seemed not at all phased.


Testing it out.

Tate got a little drum set for Christmas and Crew was pretty excited about it. He is actually quite good too. I feel kind of bad because he has such potential but I don't know if I can handle it! His birthday is coming up so we will see...

I love this picture! This is Matt's brother Michael's daughters Samantha (2) and Ashley (6) on Grandma's lap with Crew. What cute faces!

Another highlight of the trip that I don't have any pictures of was our little family date night the Friday after Christmas. Matt and I took Crew out to eat and then to his first movie, Bolt. It was one of those nights that you don't want to ever end. Crew loved being in the big movie theater, in the big seats, and between mom and dad. I'm sure the movie was pretty over his head but he loved pointing things out that he saw and every fifteen to twenty minutes he would look up at me smiling and say "hi mommy!" As we were leaving the theater he had the biggest grin on his face and we were laughing the whole way home. This was definitely a night to remember.

The week went by way too fast but we loved all being together. Thanks Allen's for such a great week and a wonderful Christmas! We love you!

Hollywood

We live so close to so many famous places so today we decided to check some of them out! We headed over to Hollywood and the famous Chinese theatre and walk of fame. Crew only liked putting his hands in the hand prints because there was water in them but it still made for a couple fun pics. I must say though, in general, that place has way too many weirdos for me to make it a frequent stop!
This picture is for you Kath! Harry Potter was right below George Cloony, and next to Will Smith. Crew actually tried to drink the water out of Jack Nickelson's prints (I think that is his last name)

Crew must be a big John Travolta fan

And to top off our fun morning we splurged on a delicious Sprinkles Cupcake! They are almost to pretty to eat but Crew had no problem digging in!

Crew has also been really into typing my brother Christian letters on the computer. He likes to sit down and type on the keyboard and always tells me "letter, Tistian" He is pretty good when I ask where Christian is he tells me "mission, Taiwan." It will be interesting to see how he reacts to him when Christian comes home in five months! I think it is so cute though!

Christmas Festivities

Oh hooray! Matt is done with his finals and we can really start enjoying all the fun holiday festivities around us! Last Saturday we went with some friends down to the Christmas lights boat parade in Marina Del Ray. It was chilly but we had so much fun!

Then Tuesday we hit up Disneyland! It is even more magical at Christmas! We got there a little before one in the afternoon and left a little after ten! Wow! It was a big day and Crew was awesome! He is getting more into the rides and the parades were a big hit! I am also convinced that Matt makes Disneyland more magical too! Crew loved having his dad there and whenever I asked him who he wanted to ride with him he never hesitated before responding "daddy!"

The poor kid didn't take a nap all day but as we were waiting for the parade to start about 6:15 he totally zonked! We let him sleep until the parade started so we was a little out of it at the beginning of the parade. He probably thought he was dreaming! But he was alert enough to shout out "Mickey Mouse" and all his other favorites as they came along.

If you ever get a chance to go to Disneyland around Christmas I totally encourage it! I especially love the castle and we had to stay until at least 9:30 so Crew could see his first fireworks show. He is still a little scared from the fire next door to my parents and got really nervous when he saw smoke. But we expalined it was safe and by the end of the show he wasn't saying "all done" anymore! He was a trooper and we had a really great day! This really is the happiest place on earth!

The Age of Reason

It has happened. Crew has reached the age of reasoning. Gone are the days where I decided for him what he eats, what we do all day, when he sleeps and so much more. For a while now I have been able to "persuade" him to do what I want with limited choices. But he is much harder to trick these days. One example: We haven't had swimming lessons the past couple weeks because of all the holidays and so he has been asking me often if we can go to the pool. Well, today is suppose to be a warmer day so I told him we could go swimming after his nap. He went down really well and was quite in his room for about 5 or 10 minutes then called for me. I went in and he said "awake now, pool."


Fortunately, having a personality makes him even more fun even though it can be challenging too. We have done a few fun things lately. Crew and I went to Disneyland on Monday and by far his favorite thing there was driving the cars at Autotopia. He is constantly telling me he wants to drive my car so this is a real treat that he can actually drive.

We haven't been to the beach for a little while but here is a pic from our last trip. What a cute face.

We have been to the Glendale Americana with the Copples a couple times this month to see the lights and enjoy the "snow." That place is so beautiful! Don't mind the freaky vampire in the background!

The Copples minus Drew in the stroller

One day when Crew decided he didn't need a nap, we finally decided to watch the Grinch at about 4 in the afternoon. It didn't take long for me to look over and see him totally out. I looked at him sleeping with the Grinch on TV and the room softly lit with Christmas lights. It was such a Christmasy moment I loved it!

Now we are counting down the days for Matt to be done with finals so he can play with us too and Crew is counting down the days until we go to Grandma's house and Christmas. He is now saying "mama's house, next week!" and "Christmas, two weeks, bike!" We have so much to look forward too!

Finally, Home for the Holidays

Because of BYU football, it has been three years since Matt and I have been able to go home for Thanksgiving and the last time we did, this is what happened!
Thankfully, there aren't many deer between L.A. and Phoenix so we were happy our drive went much smoother! But there was still a lot of excitement after we got to my parent's house. My dad got a pretty casual phone call telling us our neighbor's house was on fire and we should move our cars. We went outside with the kids to show them a firetruck and the house was just smoking. A few minutes later the roof over the garage collapsed and flames shot up! A bunch of fire trucks came and thankfully they were able to save part of the house but it was so sad and really pretty scary!

After the fire, the rest of the weekend was great. Maren and I ran the turkey trot, we had an excellent Thanksgiving dinner, had Christmas (hence, home for the holidays) black Friday shopping, family pictures and more.

Look at that face! What a ham! Crew loved playing with Carson and Papa's "BIG CHOO CHOO!"

We also happened to go to the Bass Pro Shop when Santa was there. Matt and I have really been pushing the whole "good boy for Santa" thing so we were anxious to see how Crew did meeting the big man himself. As you can see from the picture, he wasn't quite ready to sit on Santa's lap, but Crew is telling Santa in this picture what he wants for Christmas. "A bike, a big blue bike" (he has been telling us this for over a month) It was pretty cute and he felt pretty good about telling Santa for himself.
Matt took Crew out on the quads one night too. I think you can tell by the picture that it was a hit!

Two thumbs (or index fingers) up!!!

For my dad's birthday on Saturday he got a fire pit. We were all a little paranoid after Wednesday night's big event! But we had great night even though dad kept disappearing doing Bishop duties.

Thanks mom and dad for a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas and happy birthday again Papa!

My Obedient Child

This picture has nothing to do with the story. You just have to look at his cute face when you read it!
So Crew has been doing swimming lessons the past two months at the Rose Bowl. After our lesson on Monday we were in the locker room changing when I realized I forgot to bring a diaper for Crew to change into. So I had him look at my face while I told him that I had forgotten a diaper so I would be putting his sweat pants on without one. I told him this was very important and he couldn't go pee pee until we got home so he would have to hold his pee pee the entire way home. He told me ok and we finished dressing and started out to the car. I quickly noticed something was different when he was walking out the door with me instead of his usual running ahead of me. I looked down at him and noticed he was holding himself, and then it clicked! Trying not to laugh I explained to Crew that he didn't have to actually "hold" his pee pee the whole way home, that what I meant was he just had to wait to go pee pee until we got home. It was hillarious and a good reminder to me how innocent and literal these little minds can be! And yes, he didn't go pee pee until after we got home and got a diaper on! What a good boy!