The most wonderful time of the year!

We spent Christmas in Arizona this year. Marcus may have been opposed to the idea of missing the white Christmas in Utah, but we both had a great time. We stayed with my parents in Phoenix but spent Christmas night in Scottsdale with my grandparents and Brad's family (Brad, Jessica, and Ada). We had a puzzle going, like usual, which was finished on Christmas day, had our traditional omelet breakfast with Jessica's bread pudding addition, opened presents Christmas day (which was about 15 hours later than normal for Marcus), and enjoyed a fun lazy day. Most of these pictures are in no particular order-- I just added as many as I could before I had to leave Marcus' work (where I was stealing better internet). There are a lot of Ada pictures mixed around because she is so stinking cute, but all the pictures are Christmas Eve/day. I hope you all had a great Christmas! HAHA, LOVE THIS SLEEPING :) MOONEY (L) AND SADIE (R) JESSICA AND ADA THE PRETTY TABLE ERICA AND ADA ERICA AND TREVOR 'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS STOCKINGS MARCUS WITH HIS NEW TOYS ADA'S CHRISTMAS SURPRISES MARCUS AND ERICA G-DADDY AND ADA TREVOR BRAD PLAYING WITH (ADA'S) TOYS BRAD AND JESSICA MARCUS LEGO-ING ADA IN OUR NEW BEAN BAG CHAIR ADA FINISHING THE PUZZLE PUZZLE SKIP-BO DAD ADA SLEEPING BY TREE
THIS IS A QUICK VIDEO OF ADA GIGGLING AT TREVOR-- HE WAS WIGGLING HIS EYEBROWS AT HER.

I'm dreaming of a [desert] Christmas

Too many people keeping telling me that it's wrong to have a brown Christmas-- excuse me, I beg to differ! You have to admit all three of these following pictures were taken as Marcus and I drove from Provo to Phoenix, and they're beautiful! :)



This is my personal favorite! How can you not love the red mountains under the white and green?!



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My mom and I were running errands this weekend, and I wanted to see where the Phoenix temple would be going. If you're curious to what the site looks like, here's a sneak peek...

This is the church building that the temple will be sharing a parking lot with-- the temple will be in this lot on the west.

The site of the future Phoenix Arizona Temple!

This is the view looking from the temple site.

Winter Wonderland

We finally took some winter pictures up in Salt Lake-- thanks for talking them Cozette :) These are some of our out-takes...

Marcus' Bad Day

I had this voice mail from Marcus on my phone the other day:

....hi.... it's me........... i'm not having a very good day..........i ripped a huge hole in the crotch of my favorite pants, the grey ones i that wore the first time when we first hung out and for our engagement pictures, and it's in the crotch of the pants. i was just trying to get in the car, but i was wearing long underwear, and they stick to the pants and make them, like, tighter, and it ripped....and i'm really upset! and i love you, and if you get this, you should bring me treats. ....

I know that was a sad situation, but I kept laughing. I loved the whiny "i'm really upset!" part :)

This is the picture Marcus drew describing his feelings.

The poor pair of pants...

Up close and (probably too) personal

For the record, I had permission from Marcus to post this--the photos wouldn't load until I had verbal permission!

Something weird happened last night!

Ahhh- snow!

Sometime last night, I guess the clouds couldn't hold in it any longer. We woke up to the snow and it kept on comin' down... AND it won't get out of the forecast! At least we missed the first big snow when we were in Arizona last month! :)

Poor Sally- she is so cold! She didn't even know it was coming. Actually she probably noticed but couldn't get out of the way fast enough...

How sweet is he...out there scraping the snow off his car so we can get to church?!

Look how happy he is out there in that cold stuff.

This is one reason (but not all) that people on scooters can look a little ridiculous.

I won't lie, I think the snow is really pretty in the trees. Just don't tell anyone I'm admitting to liking snow of any kind.

Our church building covered in that white stuff

Don't worry, I'm only slightly traumatized. This year, I was actually ready with my winter clothes. It may seem ironic since I am not a huge fan of the snow, but I love Christmas. There's something about a nice, brown Christmas where you can go outside and walk around to see Christmas lights :)

Working for a school district is a lot of fun. This was the first Christmas present I received this year... it's from Makenzie in my orchestra :)

I'm definitely happy... and so is Marcus...