Truman's First Christmas!!

We spent Christmas Eve and morning in Flagstaff. We had a fire and Christmas Eve sandwiches on Christmas Eve, then we woke up and opened presents! Truman opened a handmade wooden firetruck made by my Uncle Chuck, a ukulele, and Scout, a stuffed dog that talks.

 After we opened our presents at home, we headed down to Scottsdale to spend the rest of the day with my family. And look who we saw on the freeway!!

 This was our favorite present! Amanda painted this picture of Truman using a photo of him as her guide. We absolutely love it!!

Snowman

Rick had finished finals and there was snow everywhere, so it was time for Truman to meet a real, live, Snowman. We galloped down to the golf course and Rick went to work while I took pictures and "supervised" both he and Truman. This was the first time T crawled around in the snow. He was intrigued with the snow sticking to his mittens and of course enjoyed trying to throw the snow. He also ate a little bit too (don't worry, I warned him about yellow snow).

These first 4 pictures were taken with my old 35mm film slr camera. I'm pretty excited to start playing with it again. (I need some practice!)

 "I can't put my arms down!"

Not a big fan of the restriction of movement while wearing a snowsuit.

A fun family outing :)

Family Pictures

I kind of decided at the last minute that I was going to do a Christmas card. It was Sunday, so I text Kristina and asked if she could do us a favor and take some family pictures for us. She kindly agreed and her and her friend Amy hoped in the car with us and we drove out to this museum that we had passed once before. (Maybe we ditched out on part of Church, don't judge us.) I thought the trains could be fun for some Flagstaff pictures, since you can hear the trains from just about anywhere in this town.

Here are the ones that actually turned out descent. It's always an adventure taking pictures with little ones!

 A big thanks to Kristina and Amy for using everything in their arsenal to capture Truman's attention and for being patient with me while I changed camera settings and poses. We owe our fun Christmas card to you ladies!!

Swim Lessons

Truman has taken 2 sessions of swim lessons. Rick and I get to swim with him in the parent/tot class. Truman absolutely loves being in the water, splashing, kicking, swimming after toys and observing everything that is going on in the Aquaplex.He has learned to move his arms and kick at the same time, put his face in the water and "blow bubbles" (kind of), and most recently he has gone all the way under water. Truman is so fun to watch and we are so proud of him!

Teeth

I was trying to get a couple of good pictures of T's teeth and curls. Got one of his first couple teeth, curls in the back of his hair, not so much. But I did get some other fun ones in the process.

Fake Thanksgiving

We have developed the tradition of having a "Fake Thanksgiving" with my Mom's side of the family every year before regular Thanksgiving. We usually do Mexican food, so it is also called "Mexican Thanksgiving"....Here are a few pictures from the shin dig at
Charles and Debbie's casa.

Truman and Taylor

We ate, visited and then the boys watched some football and the ladies did a craft. We made Christmas advent calendars out of mini muffin pans. Sweet idea Hollister!

Good Times

Here are a couple of Truman's most favorite things to do. He loves to run around Grandma and Grandpa Cross's house in his walker. He gets going pretty fast on the tile and he does continuous laps around the island. He loves the puppies and always is looking for them or chasing them.

Recently, he has played with Coco! Coco will bring Truman a toy and wait for him to pick it up and then she will play tug-o-war with him. It is so cute!!

Halloween

 We spent Truman's first Halloween down in the Valley. Friday evening we went to my parents' ward's trunk-or-treat...Truman had a bit of a melt down then fell asleep in his stroller. He didn't even make it into his costume that night. Haha!
Saturday night was the "main event". We went to Brannon and Amanda's for their annual Halloween bash.

Yay for costumes!

That's the cutest hot dog I've ever seen.

The costume didn't last too long, seeing as Truman wanted to crawl all over the place and as a hot dog, he couldn't move his legs.

Our lovely hosts.

My delicious parents.

 Amanda made party favors. They were decorated witches shoes filled with really good classic kinds of candy, like pop rocks!

 The amazing Halloween treat table!! Great job sister!

 Hello Kitty Cousin

Truman making Great Grandpa feed him like a baby goat...Great Grandpa also took advantage of the cotton candy machine that night and let Truman enjoy some too! That's what Grandpa's are for.

Thanks to everyone for a great Halloween!

Some Darn Cute Pictures

These were just some pictures we took after church on Sunday. We think Truman looks a lot like Liam in the third picture.

Spooky....

We carved our pumpkin on Monday...Happy Halloween.

Then, we decided to play a trick (ok, it was mostly my idea, Rick was hesitant)...Kristina came over on Monday and then was going to spend the night. I guess I was in the Halloween mood because I wanted to scare her when she got back from the volleyball game she went to. So, Rick and I hid behind the wall by our driveway and when she walked by Rick started recording, then I popped up and made a turkey noise...we got her good!! I asked her a couple of days later how her hat flew off and she said, " I have no idea". I haven't done anything like that in a long time it was really funny mostly because Kristina was such a good sport, but I know I should be on the look out because she'll probably get me back!

(Sorry it's pretty dark.) 

Crawling

Road Trip Part 10: California Finale

The last days of our trip took us to California. The first stop on our list was Redwoods National Park.

Always good to know how to escape from wild animals...

 These trees made you feel so small and walking though them made us marvel at nature.

We thought the ferns were beautiful as well.

There are a couple of different parks with the giant redwoods in them and a road that goes in between called the Avenue of the Giants...parts like this made all of the driving enjoyable.

We even drove through a tree!

Here is a picture of the vineyards we drove though in Northern California.

Next stop, San Francisco...we stopped in San Fran for a day and hit some of the highlights.

Below is Alcatraz.

Random giant noodle at Pier 39...

This is a Cathedral we passed driving though town.

We accidentally ended up at Golden Gate Park and ended up spending the end of the day walking around there to give Truman some time out of the car and stretch our legs before getting back on the road.

The cutest boys I know.

Our final stop was El Segundo to visit Ted and Stef. It was nice to see some family again!

We relaxed and went to the beach a couple of times.

Ted surfed and Rick had fun boogie boarding for his first time.

Truman loved laying on the beach in his travel bed!

Thanks for having us! We had so much fun and can't wait to come back!

All in all, we loved our first family road trip. Of course, there was some crying (only from Truman) which could make things a little stressful, but overall everything went smoothly. We didn't know if we would ever have this much free time to do something like this again, so we took advantage of the situation and are really glad that we did. It was fun to see all of the beautiful sights and marvel at Heavenly Father's creations, but even more fun was visiting family and friends in their hometowns. We are truly blessed.