Merry Thanksgivmas Part 3 - Christmas

We were fortunate enough to be able to spend more than 3 weeks in Arizona for Christmas this year. That is a long trip, and we were busy almost every second of it. I'm going to attempt to resist my usual urge to be overly detailed and long winded and instead of reporting to you on every minute of it, I'm just going to post a ton of pictures with very little explanation and short tidbits here and there of things I want to remember. Here it goes.

BFFs - Lydia and Alena

Guess who got to be Santa's helper for the Richardson Cousin Gift Exchange

I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus :)

Lydia wasn't very happy with the situation at first, but grew to be okay with it.

BFFs - Annie and Mary

Richardson Cousin Gift Exchange

Wilcken Christmas Story and Bunko Night

Nertz Nerd (translation: our friends) Breakfast, Gift Exchange, and Tournament

Complete with pony rides :) A first for Mary and Lydia

Wilcken Christmas Eve

It's tradition that we turn off all the lights (except the Christmas tree), and by candle and oil lamp, sing Silent Night and Were You There On That Christmas Night, read Luke 2, and eat a dinner like in Christ's time - unleavened bread, fish, grapes, etc. This year my mom had to work Christmas Eve Night, so we did this around lunch time instead. My brother Preston, AKA my partner in crime, and I put butcher paper over all of the windows so that it was still dark. It worked perfectly. I love traditions!

 

Christmas Day

My older brother is a UPS driver. This was his present to Mary. It has the UPS logo on the back. We love it :)

The Phoenix Zoo

Robert's mom was given a zoo membership by his dad, so we all went together one of the last days we were in town. It was super fun, especially with Lydia being really in to animals lately (compliments of Go Diego Go!)

Lydia was kind of indifferent to everything until we went on the Monkey walk. It's a big enclosed space that you can walk through while a bunch of spider monkeys roam freely around you. Lydia loved it!! At one point a monkey jumped and stood right next to her. She kept excitedly pointing and saying "Bo Bo! Bo bo!" Like the Bo Bo brothers on Go Diego Go.

In the petting zoo, Lydia wanted nothing to do with actually petting the goats. Instead she would just squat down right in front of each one and wave and say "Hi!"

Lydia rediscovered her love for Cheetos

The 3 Richardson grandchildren. Our two, and Robert's brother Terrel and Jenn's Brooklyn. They aren't all together that often, but Terrel and Jenn plan on moving to Monterey this summer, so hopefully we will be seeing a lot more of them.

Two days after the zoo we came home, and there was our trip. We had a blast, can't wait to see all of our family again, but it is so great to be home. This concludes our Merry Thanksgivmas posts until next year. I hope everyone had their own fabulous Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Let's Go Fly a Kite!

We interrupt these Merry Thanksgivmas posts to bring you an afternoon we had between the Thanksgiving and Christmas trips. There was a huge windstorm that hit our area for several days. I've dealt with monsoon storms and snow storms, but it was a new experience to have a just wind storm. We didn't have it too bad, but there were other areas in the county that went without power for a couple of days from the wind taking out power lines and such and roads that were blocked because of several fallen trees. At our place our biggest complaint was that the wind through the trees was keeping us up at night, which wasn't too bad, and during the day it was perfect kite flying weather. So we busted out a dust covered kite that we bought a few years ago for $2 and had never used, went to our complex's baseball field, and had a blast. I think these pictures are fun. The ocean in the background of a couple of them just adds an extra special touch. Gotta love Santa Cruz!

Merry Thanksgivmas Part 2 - Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was AWESOME!!! There was constant fun and tons of family time. All of my siblings and their counterparts were in town in Mesa and we did all that we could to squeeze in as much time with each other as possible. For a while Robert and I thought we weren't going to be able to afford to go down for both Thanksgiving and Christmas so we were not going to make the Thanksgiving trip. It ended up working out and it made us appreciate and enjoy it that much more.

Robert and I got in to Mesa on Thanksgiving Eve night and the party was already in full force. I don't know how you cook your turkey, but it's been a long standing tradition that we cook our turkeys in a pit. It's basically the same concept as a crock pot. Dig a pit, make a huge bonfire in it and let it all burn down until you have a ton of really hot coals left, put the turkeys in and cover with a big lid of some sort (this year we used the hood of a car) and all of the dug out dirt and leave them there slow cooking for 12 hours. The most tender and moist turkey you'll ever have! This pit was one of the biggest we'd ever done. We did FOURTEEN turkeys in it this year!! And what better reason to throw an extra party than a bonfire. Am I right??

During the bonfire party, we watched a video of my brother Scott. He had gotten a wisdom tooth out earlier that day and was very loopy and out of it afterwards, so of course my other brother Preston encouraged the loopiness and video taped it. CLASSIC!

Robert got a big kick out of it.

The next morning it was time to unearth them, always a nerve wracking experience. There have been years that for what ever reason the coals don't stay hot and all of the turkeys aren't cooked all of the way, but this year... PERFECTION!! They uncovered them and there was still a ton of heat and every turkey was meat falling off the bone goodness!

My beautiful AMAZING mother! So thankful for her!!

And then we stuff! So much food, so much family, so much fun!!

Lydia collapsed on Scott, so exhausted from the excitement of the day.

That evening we blessed Mary. Robert's blessing was sweet and perfect. It was so amazing to have so many worthy priesthood holders from our family in the circle. From left to right: Robert's Uncles Randy and Rod, my brothers-in-law Ryan, Mike, Danjee, Brad, and Shay, my brothers Scott and Preston, Robert and Mary, Robert's brother in-law Jonathan, Robert's Grandpa Richardson, Robert's dad, and my dad. So many stalwart men!

Mary with her Great Grandma Richardson

Mary with her Great Grandma Hall

Four Generation Picture

Our little family. Ain't we sweet?!?

All 11 siblings from oldest to youngest

Gotta love silly pictures

I failed to get any pictures of the Richardson Thanksgiving the next day or the rest of the weekend for that matter, but it was just as fabulous. We are so blessed and thankful for all of our amazing family!!

Our Home Sweet Home & Merry Thanksgivmas Part 1 - Decorations

So here is the long awaited tour of our apartment. I know you all have been waiting on the edge of your seats and losing sleep in anticipation of this. So here we go...

The Main Floor

The Living Room/Dining Area

The Quaint Kitchen

Upstairs

The Study - We got the desk and matching printer cabinet for FREE! Thank you generous Craigslist people!

The Bathroom - Complete with orange, Brady Bunch-esque sink

Kids Room - We're on the hunt for a cheap toddler bed so we can move Lydia out of and Mary into the crib. I'll work on decorating this room all cutesy once that is done.

Our Bedroom/My Craft Room

Outside

View of the ocean from our parking lot

A little better picture of it taken from the hill you see behind the stop sign in the last picture.

View of the forest from our back door shrouded in fog the way it commonly is in the morning a lot of the year. Kind of cool :)

For those of you who are curious how exactly this is all laid out, here is a video tour. I think it is boring and kind of cheesy. I even added background music ("Our House" by Madness, I thought it was fitting) to try to ease the boringness of it. It might have helped a little, but not much. And you might be able to tell from the video that I'm very excited about all the closet/storage space I have in this apartment. :)

And there you have it, our humble home. Since our Thanksgivmas decorations were featured in the video, I'll go ahead and post about those. Every year while we've been married, Thanksgiving and Christmas have kind of blurred together since we always make the 2 trips down to AZ. We barely would have time to enjoy our Christmas decorations because we would put them up just in time to go to AZ for Christmas and then take them down right after we got back. So this year we decided to embrace the situation. The first week of November we put up our fall and Christmas decorations up and declared, "Merry Thanksgivmas!!" Here's our Christmas tree calendar and Thankful Turkeys.

Our fall welcome sign surrounded by snowflakes.

Our Christmas stockings and fall colored paper chain.

And here's daddy helping Lydia decorate the Christmas tree :)

The finished product

More Merry Thanksgivmas posts to come!