A Visit From Ruff & Clay

My Aunt Ruff & Uncle Clay came to Phoenix for the week of Thanksgiving, and we were so blessed that they were able to come over for dinner with Trish, Marshall, Jennifer & Kelsey.  We all had a really great time, and the kiddos had a lot of fun with them this evening.  They also brought presents for the kids which was so sweet!  Evie loved her playdough toys and new painting supplies, and Henry was given an adorable outfit and some texture books which both kids love to look at.  (Henry still needs some hat therapy so that he can better enjoy wearing adorable hats).  Thanks so much for coming to visit us, and for the thoughtful gifts!!  We hope you come back to Phoenix soon!!

Christmas Photos With Santa

Spoiler Alert!!!  We may, or may not, be using some of these photos for our Christmas card this year.
While the kids were in good spirits, and they looked very nice on this morning, the actual photo-taking was a challenge.  Just as Evie was getting on her chair, the chair tipped forward, she fell out, and the photographer went to grab her, inadvertently knocking Evie in the head with her camera.  After a couple of minutes of tears, we tried again, only to have Henry freak out on Santa.  But pictures of young children crying at being sat on Santa's lap are still pretty cute and funny, right?  So, after all of that, we get these photos back, and this is the most disinterested Santa we've ever seen, his expressions are almost comical at the risk of almost "wrecking" our Christmas photos.  Still, we got some great photos and luckily, Joe is a wizard at photoshop.

Christmas Photos

Every year, Knoll provides this awesome opportunity for local designers and architects to bring their families to get Christmas photos taken with Santa.  This year, they hosted it at their Knoll Showroom in Tempe, and they had lots of snacks, hot cocoa and coffee, a crafts room for the kids, in addition to taking your Christmas photos for you for free.  It is such a better alternative to getting photos with Santa at a crazy mall, and they always provide a pretty classy backdrop.  Joe helped get Evie ready, he's such the "modern dad", isn't he?  And Evie got to spend some time hanging out with Gola while we waited our turn for the photo shoot.  (We also got Evie's gorgeous holiday dress as a hand-me-down from Gola).

  

Henry Laughing

Love this!  Here is an adorable video of Henry laughing while Joe makes popping noises:

Saturday Fun

Joe took Evie to the park this morning to play and feed the ducks, which she loves.  Henry and I chilled at home, and he took a nap.  This evening, we watched a movie using our projector, (Evie calls it "the big screen").  It was a really nice, fun Saturday!

Veteran's Day Parade

Since Joe doesn't get Veteran's Day as a holiday, we invited our friend and past-neighbor, Jennifer, to join us.  Jennifer is really fun with the kids and her and Evie have a special relationship.  There were four vintage bi-planes that flew over, signalling the start of the parade, so cool!  The weather was really beautiful, sunny and warm, just a great morning to go see a parade.  The kids were really well-behaved which made it much easier than previous parade experiences.  Evie really enjoyed watching the parade and waving her flag around, and Henry was content to sit in the stroller for most of it.  We stayed for about 90 minutes of the parade, and left when the kids were starting to get a bit restless and it was time for lunch.  We had so much fun!!

Local First Arizona Fall Festival

There was a free fall festival downtown this weekend, we decided to check it out.  Evie has been wanting to ride the lightrail trail for a long time now, so this was a perfect opportunity.  The train was pretty crowded, but Evie loved it!!  The festival was also pretty crowded but there was lots of food from local restaurants and it was fun to just walk around, Evie got to enjoy the inflated bounce house, and the weather was gorgeous.

Fun at Target

Sometimes Joe takes Evie to Target, just the two of them, to pick up a couple of things, and to give me a break from Evie and running errands.  They usually do a lot of goofing around too, and have a lot of fun together!  Here Evie is trying on a post-Halloween witches hat.

Herberger Festival of The Arts

There was a practically-free Festival of the Arts event at the Herberger Theater this weekend, and I wanted to go.  Joe, not so much.  So I took Evie, and Joe and Henry dropped us off downtown and went to do their own thing, picking us up about 90 minutes later.  It was really fun to spend some time just with Evie, and they had some kids activities, theater performances, and live music.  Evie especially enjoyed the couple of dance performances that we got to watch.  We had so much fun!