Christmas stuff

For neighbor gifts this year I was not sure what I was going to do.

Now that we have moved, we had a LOT more families on our list to give to.

I decided to order mini loaves of bread from Whole Grain and

honey butter from Texas Roadhouse!

Yep, total cheater:/

We ended up delivering to 45 different families!

The boys had separate Christmas programs.

Lane had his first at Mesa High.

Can you see him?:)

And Rusty at his.

Stephanie and Travis invited us over for pizza and ginger bread house making.

She is the fun, festive one in the family. Marcie, too.

If it weren't for them, my kids would never do anything exciting around the holidays!

I need to step up my game!

Rusty put about 5 pounds worth of candy on his house.

Casey's creation gets an E for effort:)

and Collin, well, his fell over so he dove in!:)

 Grammy did a fun Grinch party and transformed her house into Whoville... literally!

Once again, we were the lame family and were the only ones who didn't even think to dress up!

Agh, I get no fun points.

She had a whole feast fit for a Who!

After some games, we had a surprise visitor from the Grinch himself!

Lindi really dug him.

This picture cracks me up.

Martin was the Grinch but their kids didn't know it.

Hehe, poor Claire!

We ended with the nativity.

Rusty was excited to be Joseph this year.

The Udall party was at my parents again.

Each family did a musical number of some sort.

My mom played the violin for our family.

We played white elephant as per tradition.

Stephanie brought the best gift that trumped a squatty potty... a live LOBSTER!

Leah's face says it all!

Welp, Stephanie won back her own gift and decided to cook it right then and there!

Lucky for us Uncle Dwight is a master at lobster cooking!

All of his years fishing in Mexico sure helped us get all the meat would could get out of that

poor lobster!

Mmm, chewy:)

The Sunday before Christmas.

Casey is looking at our friend Daniel who is making fun of us while taking pictures.

He loves getting his picture taken... especially in front of the whole ward

busting out of the parking lot to get home;)

Our first Christmas in our new home.

I got a smaller, more simple tree and I loved it.

I put it inside a basket instead of doing a tree skirt, a perfect touch for the new space:)

and our Christmas card this year.

I had to scan it so it didn't turn out very big.

DISNEYLAND!

Man, oh man did we start December off with a bang!

After the NPX, we packed up again.

This time to DISNEYLAND with my family!

I didn't post every picture, not even half!

Someday hopefully I'll get around to making a Disneyland photo book

of all our adventures to the happiest place on earth:)

We left Sunday after church.

We only took the boys.

Lindi was still too young to haul around Disneyland for 3 days straight.

Did I feel guilty about it?

Not in the least bit!!

Luckily she had Olive to hang with while we were gone.

So they had their own fun while my cousin Trellany babysat them:)

Once we arrived, we HAD to go get our favorite ice cream at Tiffy's!

Who cares if it was 10pm!

I had missed my homemade chocolate peanut butter waffle cone!

 We checked into the hotel and went right to bed.

The next morning we got in line to start  the most magical 3 days.

Funny how we left our "baby" but couldn't stop holding Scarlett!

We are in,  off to Fantasyland!

Of course Peter Pan was already at an hour wait the first 3 minutes the park

had been open. So we hopped on the next best, Mr. Toads Wild Ride.

Already snack time!

We kind of eat our way through Disneyland.

Monte Cristo, by far my favorite Dland food!

An inside story for my and Stephanie, reliving the past;)

My moms favorite ride, the monorail!

The next day at CA Adventure us 3 girls showed up with side braids.

And then we quickly noticed the boys all had RVCA hats, lol!

My FAVORITE ride EVER!

We like to save the cold, wet rides for night time.

Getting dessert before World of Color.

The best part about the third day was that Jefferson flew in the night before!

Pretty sure we rode Thunder Mountain 10 times.

Indiana Jones was a close 2nd with about 6 times.

We were in Toon Town right before it closed for the fireworks, so nobody

was there!

We hopped right on that dinky roller coaster you normally have to wait an hour for

and also walked right up to Mickey in his house!

I wish I had the video of him Whipping and Nae Nae-ing with us...seriously!

After the parade and fireworks each night we would  hit up Splash Mountain.

We would walk right on!

We didn't leave the park until it closed each night, which was 11pm.

And we were up and in line before it opened each morning.

 The last night there was a mystical fog that appeared.

It honestly was really cool.

This was at MIDNIGHT, 1am Arizona time!

Our last ride for the trip.
Space Mountain to wrap up the trip!

The boys thought they were in heaven.

Walking through the empty park with the thick fog back to the hotel,

I couldn't help but feel so much gratitude.

It was such a FUN trip!