Martinsen Family Time

The day after Christmas was spent with taking naps and hanging out with the Martinsen clan. In the afternoon, we went to a park near Annie's house to play.Each boy had to show off his dismount skills on the swings. Of course, nobody got my sweat backflip on film. Ryan was pretty nervous for me, but I pulled it off, just like the old days.

Grandparents

After church, we were off to Mesa for two days. We spent time with the Martinsen group and then over to the Heap's for the traditional Mexican food feast. Aunt Denise brought lots of fun "Minute to Win It" games for the kids to play with their cousins, all the kids opened new books from the Greats, and Caleb played  his famous number, "Hedwig's Theme" on the piano for Grandpa Great.

CHRISTMAS

We spent Christmas Eve at home with our neighbors, the Puentes family. Eli and their daughter, Alina, are also in the same first grade class.
We feasted on appetizers, watched some clips about Christ's birth from lds.org and the kids exchanged gifts.

The next morning, we opened up presents and then went to church. Ryan rode bikes with Caleb & Eli to the newly finished Anthem meetinghouse! It's been so nice to have a church 5 minutes away. The New River building we were meeting in took about 20.

Martinsen Caroling

Grandpa Martinsen rigged up a really impressive hay ride for us to go caroling. (None of the pictures even show the reindeer in the back of his pick-up.)We drove around singing and realizing that maybe next time we should have a song book to help us out. We only the all of the words to a few classic Christmas songs! We caroled to the Greats and around some neighborhoods before heading back to the Scoresby's house for hot cocoa and cookies.

Rock Springs Hike

Went on a nice family hike about 30 minutes north of our house. It seems we've been doing quite a bit of hiking lately. It's an activity we can do as a family, it helps us take advantage of the nice weather, and it's free! We hiked up and then back down again into a wash area that had a little water running through.

We stopped to play for a while, which means that the older boys played while I tried to keep Nolan from jumping into the water.

Yep. That'a a tarantula!

Santa's Lap

Caleb and Eli were much too cool for Santa this year.
Nolan and Marcus didn't want to have anything to do with him.
Marcus caved though when he saw that he could score some candy by at least saying, "Hi" to Santa.

the Graduate

Marcus is officially a Sunbeam at church! He has been the biggest kid in nursery for a while now. He's just a big kid to begin with and then, he has a Feb. birthday, so he's one of the oldest too. He looked like a GIANT next to the 18 month old kids. The last few weeks on "mersery", he cried and threw fits when I left him. Then, he did the same thing when he first went to his Sunbeams class. That is all behind us now (I hope). He loves Primary and gets to see Eli, Mom & Dad when he comes in for Singing Time.

Christmas Tree Cutting

Because of lots of snowfall, we couldn't get back into any of the pretty pines this year. So, we ended up with a Ponderosa Pine again. It's got character! And, every time someone comes into our house they say they love it. We met up with Grandpa Johnson, Cody & Richelle & their kids for some fun in the snow.

EVMCO

Margo and Traci started singing in the East Valley Mormon Choral Organization. We took Caleb and Eli, plus Grandma and Grandpa Martinsen to the Christmas show.