Little Trip....

So we decided before we have the baby that we would take the two children and have a family vacation where we could have fun with the two of them before we added one more!  We headed to San Diego Old Towne and enjoyed a few days of the pool, good food, and some exciting touristy spots.  If you have never been to this section of San Diego it is a fun place to go and just walk around!!  I think the children felt the love, and had a great time with mommy and daddy before Lily arrives in our family!!

Sarah LOVED breakfast at the hotel!!!

 The weather was fantastic, and we loved hanging out at the pool!

 One of the great restaurants that we found, the tortilla's were so fresh!!!!

 Panning for rocks, like they panned for GOLD!

 Geo's that the children picked out!  Kurtis has collected many Geo's from our trips, it has become a habit for us to pick one wherever we can find them!

 A haunted house we found there...it is one of the few authentic haunted houses in the US.  We had no experiences ourselves, but Derick LOVES haunted houses so it was fun to say we went there!

 Some fun touristy items....

  Our little ones were so tired by the end of our trip but really loved every minute of it!

 Outside of our hotel...it was a very very beautiful and NEW hotel!

 The temple on the way home!

Lily's Baby Shower

Derick and I are very very blessed out here with wonderful family and friends that have really spoiled us.  Lily is already a lucky lucky girl!  I feel very fortunate to have such a wonderful, close circle of friends and Derick's family especially with my family so far away!  Here are some great shots that Serene took at the shower...it was just a fun girls night out before this little bundle of joy comes into our lives!

Special thanks to Serene and Summer for throwing the shower, Laurel for allowing us to use her amazing home, and Elaine, Paula, and Stephanie for bringing some of my favorite yummy treats!

Thank you to everyone who came and celebrated with me.  It was really more then I could have asked for, and I thank everyone for that!!!

Kurtis' Birthday!

Kurtis turned 7 and we had a small gathering to celebrate his birthday!!  He was just a happy happy child!  We love him so much and are so thankful to have him in our family. 

Trip to VA....

We had a ton of fun traveling to visit our family in Virginia!  It was cold but no there was no snow!

We read a lot of books!

 We played pirates with the wrapping paper ends.

 We went and saw the nutcracker!!

 We played outside with cousins!

 We delivered Santa's letters to Macy's!

 Sarah got her face decorated by both Aunts.

 Kurtis stirred the stew!  Which was the best this year!!

 We had dance parties with glow sticks from Aunt Katie!

 We did the nativity scene.

 And had Christmas PJ's that matched!

 GG got some Star Trek memorabilia!!  

 and Kurtis lost ANOTHER tooth!

I don't have photos from other things we did with the family like going to Karen and Kenny's for the Gholson Get Together, or other activities at Nanny's but we loved seeing and being with all of our family!!  The children got everything their heart desired and more, thank you to everyone, we love you and miss you already!!

The start of the Holidays!!!

We started the Holidays with going to The Grove to see Santa Claus, we had Sarah's ballet recital, Kurtis' school Winter Program, and we went to the temple lights!!  We even had carolers come and carol to us...it really started the holidays off right.  We had fun with lots of friends and family and enjoyed time staring the holidays!!

Trip to the spaceship and little critter

Kurtis lost another tooth.

Sarah took a trip to the Endeavor at the California Science Center with her pre-school class.  It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed playing in some of the other exploring rooms with our friends.

We also visited a friend who has a Chin Chi la (sorry if spelling is incorrect...), the kids LOVED it!!!