Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

We had a very Good Christmas. Colter of course remembered Christmas from last year, so he was excited for Santa to come. We stayed at home here in Bagdad. It's nice not having to pack presents around to others homes, but will did miss our families. I was surprised that Brooklyn got the hang of opening presents. Colter wanted each toy open and assembled before opening the next one. Colter got mostly cars and a couple of books thrown in there. As tradition in my family both kids got new toothbrushes. I think Santa is worried about what all the holiday candy does to teeth. Brooklyn got a babydoll with a stroller. Colter was excited about that. He likes to rock the baby, which he named Shoe shoe. He makes sure she gets her bottle. Nick's not sure he likes the idea of Colter playing with dolls, but I think it's sweet. Nick got a Cabela's Big Game wii game, right now thats all he wants to do. I got a wii fit. I'm inproving my warm indoors skiing skills. We had Christmas dinner with some friends from our ward. It was fun. We played a game A-Z with everyone. (Thanks Chance and Tawna, its a blast.) We ended the day reading The Night Before Christmas. Its been Colter's favorite book lately. We've read it every night for the past 3 weeks. As we kissed Colter good night he asked us if Santa's going to come again that night. We too are surprised at how fast it came and went.

First step to recovery is admitting it

Many of you might not know that we are addicted. My dad came to visit us and it was to hard to hide our addiction from him. He soon found out and became addicted to. So we're coming out to tell everyone. Yes, that's right we are wii addicted. While we were at families houses over Thanksgiving, we became sucked into the fun. The next day Nick and I bought one for ourselves. It's our Christmas present. We're both really bad with waiting for Christmas and ended up opening it before it was even December. So this is how we've been spending our free time. Even Colter loves to play it. Our favorite by far is Guitar Hero.

My dad rocking out on the Guitar.

Colter boxing. He's actually really good and usually gets a KO by the 2nd round.

My dad and Nick playing darts. I think this is better than real darts because you don't end up with holes in the wall.

Giving Thanks for Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful thanksgiving. I'm glad that there's a time of the year to think about how you are blessed. I'm very blessed, but I am most thankful for my family and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This year we decided to venture to the land were everything is bigger(even the speeding tickets), yes that's right, Texas. We started our trip on Friday the 21st. First we went to my parents house in Tucson. It's only about 4 hours away. They were crazy, I mean kind enough to watch our dogs for the week. Saturday morning we woke up and hit the road to Nick's cousin's house in Comanche,TX. Its by Abeline. It was our longest day of traveling, 12 hours. Both our kids did great in the car though. While at Annette's we had Thanksgiving dinner early on Sunday. It was at Nick's aunt and uncle's house with all of their kids. It was the first time I've ever had fried turkey, it was good. Nick went deer hunting with his cousin Kenny. Kenny got a deer. We also went to Glenrose to a drive through zoo. Here's some pictures.

Brooklyn watching the Zebras.
Michelle(Nick's Cousin) with her son Grant. Colter had fun with him.

Colter and Grant feeding the Giraffe out of the SUVs sunroof.

The next leg of our journey was another 4 hour car ride to my uncle Mark's house in Houston. It's so pretty there. I'm glad it was winter time(we could have worn short). We got there Wednesday morning. That night Ting(my aunt) made Chinese food, really good Chinese food. Thursday we had Thanksgiving dinner. It was really good. It was the first stuffing that I've ever liked. Mark and Ting's two daughters Shandi and Waisha were there along with my cousin Tahila and her husband Jeff and their daughter lilly. Mark and Ting also have a friends son, Micheal, staying with them. He's from Taiwan, and really cool. Shandi's coworker Bola from Nigeria came too.

Picture of Shandi, Micheal, and Ting working on the food.

On Friday Nick and I joined the crowd and went shopping while Mark watched our kids. After that we went to the Houston Zoo. It rained on us a little, but was fun.

Colter and Nick in a Gopher hole.
Ting took us to China town for some authentic Chinese food. I didn't know the name of anything we ate, but it was great. We also got some fruit smoothies with tapioca ball in it, good is all I can say. We played card games(typical for my family) and had a lot of fun. We left Saturday morning and went to San Antonio, 3 hours away.We walked around the Alamo and then went for a horse carriage ride. He told us all about the buildings we say, its was way interesting.

Us in the carriage.

We got back in the car and drove to El Paso. Another 8 hours in the car. We spent the night and left early Sunday morning to make it to Drake's blessing in Benson, AZ. Drake is my sister Summer's new addition. Hes such a mellow baby. Colter loved being with his cousins. Here's a picture of them sitting as best as 8 kids will.

We spent the night there and then headed back to home. Our kids are sure glad to be out of their car seats, they did great. We had a lot of fun and Nick thinks it should be our new Thanksgiving tradition. We want to give a big thanks to those who housed us, fed us, entertained us, and watched our pups.