Christmas Eve 2014

We tried to add one more activity to our usual Christmas Eve festivities: we walked along Canyon Rd downtown where they had set up hundreds of farolitos (the little lanterns sometimes called luminaries). We had exhausted our visitors, so it was just our family and we didn't make it very far because of how cold it was, and the pictures were not that great. But we all thought it was worth the effort and will probably do it again.

It really was cool to see all the lanterns lining the street.

Everyone was really cold and even though they had little fires set up to warm your hands, we still only lasted about 15 minutes.

 When we got home, we did our traditional Christmas Eve activities. We started out with the nativity:

Then we all got new pajamas and changed into them! We all looked pretty darn good, I think.

Could you fit any more crazies on one couch?

The ladies.

No, Andres does not like to take pictures with a normal face.

Sister Dexter comes home!

We were the luckiest in the world and got to have Sister Taylor Dexter come home from her mission right before Christmas and join in the festivities in Santa Fe!
I was particularly excited because I've never been to anyone coming home before. I missed all the others by either being on my mission, at school or just several states away. So I was super excited at the airport and because of that, I just kept taking pictures and didn't get IN any of them. Oh, well. I was just excited to welcome home a missionary. And not just any missionary! Sister Taylor Dexter from Moscow, Russia! We made some signs in Russian and welcomed her home in style!

Ward Christmas Party (With Santa!)

Andres had quite a list for Santa. Most of it involved Legos of different varieties. He also chose his outfit all on his own. He was very insistent on the bow tie which has skulls with Santa hats on it (we found it on clearance somewhere and he now wants to wear it every Sunday too). 

Dexter was much more hesitant about sitting on Santa's lap. He did tell him from a distance that he wanted a fire truck.

Addie is at the wonderful age where she didn't want us to hear what she asked Santa for. Fantastic.

We had a great time. It was a bit funny, though, that the one kid who was terrified of Santa also recognized him at church the next week and seemed excited (maybe it was the outfit and the beard that freaked him out?).

Thanksgiving in Washington

For Thanksgiving we flew to Seattle to spend the holiday with my parents and Michael. It had been a long time since I had spent Thanksgiving with my family, and it was so nice! And the food was the best ever! My dad and I had a great time in the kitchen cooking up old family favorites and some new concoctions. It was a great meal and a great time had by all!

We also had time to have a bit of a girl's day. The three of us went shopping and had pedicures.
Yes, we know that we're super cool.

We also got to start off the Christmas season with some cookie decorating. The kids made some super great creations and we basically had an awesome time!

Halloween 2014

This Halloween was one of our funnest yet! We dressed as the Addams Family.

I personally think the best part was the kids. They had so much fun doing this and definitely got into the spirit of things.

Andres as Pugsley

Jason as Gomez

Dexter as Fester

Adelaide as Wednesday

Pumpkin Patch

Andres' class went on a field trip to an awesome pumpkin patch, and knowing that we were pretty busy, I let Addie skip school and come with us. We had such a fun time! It was one of the best pumpkin patches I've ever been to. We got to go on a hayride out to the pumpkins, then there were all sorts of slides and things to climb in and over and play on. Hopefully we'll get to come back again!

Waiting for the hayride.

Andres' goofy smile on the hayride.

Dexter was on the hunt for a small one.

Andres wanted one that wasn't yucky and looked like a perfect pumpkin.

Addie wanted a really big one...until she realized she would have to carry it out by herself.

Dex could've stayed on the tractor the whole time!

They had a really cool western town, and the most favorite place was the jail. They found very quickly that they could squeeze out through the bars on the window, so they did about a dozen times.

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

Ever since we moved here, I knew that I wanted to check out the balloon fiesta that they have every year in Albuquerque. It just sounded so neat! For those of you who haven't heard of it, it's the biggest mass ascension of hot air balloons in the world! These pictures (of which I didn't even put a fraction of) don't even do it justice. It was totally worth going to (at least for our family)!

We went on the last Saturday of the fiesta and got there in time for the 'dawn patrol'. I was a bit nervous about getting up that early and wondered if my sleep-loving husband would be up for it, but he was just as excited as me. So we dragged everyone out of bed at 4:30 and drove down.

We wore layers because last year everyone had said that it was freezing. We were glad that we wore layers, because we never even needed our coats. They jackets were just fine. We walked around for a bit and found a spot to wait and just happened to be right in front of the balloons doing the dawn patrol, when they ascend and coordinate the lights while it's still dark. It was pretty cool.

After that we wandered through the balloons, watching a couple of them fill up. We had brought a blanket and we found a spot in the midst of the balloons to let the kids sit for a bit. Then all of a sudden it seemed like we were surrounded by balloons filling up and lifting off. It was awesome. This is the part that the pictures definitely do not show how cool it was to be right in the middle of all those balloons. The kids all thought it was so cool and so did Jason and I.

They had all sorts of balloons from all over the world and it was fun to see the different characters and shapes. We didn't stay much into the day. We grabbed some breakfast from one of the vendors and bought some ornaments for our Christmas tree. Then we headed home and all three kiddos fell asleep on the way.