Christmas Evening 2011

We got to spend Christmas evening in Maricopa at my brother-in-law's house. We had lots of delicious food, including one of my new favorites, sweet corn tamale from Mi Amigos (I think). My sister in law also made the best cake! After dinner, we played lots of Kinect and some other games. We even convinced Papa Goodman to play Just Dance, but I failed to get a picture because he officially banned it. Although, it will be forever engraved in my mind! Good times. I got to meet my sister-in-law's boyfriend, Max. He fits right in with the fam. Aren't they so cute together!???? I told them it works better when they hold hands, hehe. I'm so sneaky.

 Kaydence loves her Grandma Goodman

 Jen frosting her masterpiece. She was so proud of it.

 Aunt Jen let Kaydence play with their bird. She fell in love. It even flew on her head and she didn't even cry. The rest of the night she kept wanting to go upstairs to see the bird, so she spent most of her time on the staircase.

We had a lot of fun that night. Thanks Brandon and Jen for having us!

Christmas Morning 2011

Christmas morning was so much fun this year! Kaydence really enjoyed everything about the holiday's. We all woke up at 6:30am to open presents before the sunrise!

 All of my siblings put together this cute "Rowley Memories" scrapbook. We filled it with tons of childhood stories/memories that we could remember. It was a success! It was fun to read all of them together because everyone didn't know what stories each person wrote. There were lots of laughs and tears. Mom said it was the "best gift" we have ever given her. Then she clarified, "well it's tied with the mother's day video you made me". 

 All the kids minus Dustin, plus two grandkids!

 Grandma and Grandpa Rowley got Kaydence this cute little doggie that barks and walks. She loves it. Funny she's got 3 real dogs of her own, but she favors the fake one.

 Kaydence's classic bed hair do.

 Kaydence does love her real doggies though.

 After swapping presents, we had our traditional Christmas morning breakfast with the Rowley cousins. Tanner and I were in charge of the pancakes and they were delish! Most of Tanner's were burnt though, but he claims he meant to burn them! haha.

 I caught Tanner in mid-story telling. After making Tanner and Mckay come up with awesome stories for the book, they now have stories up the wazoo to tell!

 Kaydence had so much fun with my cousin's little boy, Tiedyn. They are almost a year apart, but they played so well together.

 One of Kaydence's favorite presents was her Lion King playhut. She is playing in it this very moment as I write this.

The Eve Of Christmas

Christmas Eve crept up on us so quickly this year! We had a surprise visit from my cousin Jennifer, and her husband and two kids who live in Utah. It was a lot of fun to spend some time with them. 

We normally have our annual Christmas Eve Dinner at my grandma's house, but this year my Dad cooked and we had it at our house. We had a Mexican feast! Tanner and I went to Moreno's the day before (which is Gecko's brother's restaurant), so we bought some of the amazing green salsa for the dinner. It was the cherry on the top!

 I also planned the white elephant gift exchange this year. There were some good gifts, and some not so good gifts. Tanner and I got stuck with the not so good gifts, haha.

 We finished off the evening with egg nog, milk chocolate, snuggling, and the traditional Scrooge movie. It was fun to have another addition to the family, baby Jaxson, but we were missing Dustin. Next year we will have everyone here!

Ten Years Ago...

On December 21st, 2001, Tanner and I went on our very first date and made gingerbread houses. Ever since then, we made it a tradition to make gingerbread houses every December 21st (excluding while he was on his mission). Just a couple days ago, we celebrated our 10th anniversary of our first date!!!!! I can't believe how old we are getting! 

 Here's a photo of us ice skating in our fresly frozen over pool. 

 Kaydence loved it this year. She ate about 10 Hershey Kisses, plus tons of other candies here and there. That was a mistake! She wouldn't go to sleep. 

 Here's our very first date photo. Tanner was kinda blinded by the light!