Christmas Fun!

I love Christmas Day! I wish that it lasted more than one day! Here are some of our Christmas day highlights...

Here are our stocking. I know, there are 7 stocking and only 4 people in our family. We had to have two extra for Grandma and Grandpa and then we have a special stocking for Baby Jesus. One of our traditions is to write down a "gift" (or rather a goal) that you are going to give baby Jesus over the next year. Now you see why we have 7. But of course, I have always felt the more the merrier!

And here are our two Christmas sweeties! Chap got up at 6am and was kind enough not to wake us until 7am. (What a good boy!)

Every Christmas we make donuts from scratch. We usually cut them into triangles like beignets (New Orleans Donuts). This is always great fun! (If you want a bit of history... My grandmother used to make donuts from scratch on Christmas morning. When I was growing up the tradition was adjusted a little and my Dad would go and pick up donuts from the donut shop Christmas Eve to eat on Christmas morning. Well, when Robby and I got married he decided that if we were going to follow tradition we had to do it right and make them from scratch! And so we do.)

Here are some of the chocolate covered ones. Yum! Yum! In our house we have to eat breakfast before we open the gifts under the tree.

Wrapping paper ripping fun!

Oh look, a book!

Robby has been extremely busy with school so he has had very little time to come up with a gift for me. I have really been wanting to go shopping for some new clothes, so he decided to give me money to spend. I was disappointed because I thought knew everything I was getting for Christmas (I really like surprises), so Robby surprised me by folding my money into shirts and dresses. Very creative!

Little Robby and Jenna really loved the quillows that I made them. ("What's a quillow?" you ask. It is a blanket that has a pocket that it can be fold-up and stuffed into. When it's folded it is a pillow, when it is unfolded it is a quilt. Hence, it is called a quillow!)

Cousin Matthew made something special for Robby and Jenna. Thank you Matthew!

Jenna got some dress up clothes and decided that she had to try three of them on... at once!

More fun surprises!

Bonus pic: On the Sunday night before Christmas my parents and our family had a great time visiting the Temple Lights. We had a lot of fun!

Gingerbread House

When the Christmas season rolled around, Little Robby asked me if we could make a gingerbread house. Since I love making fun memories for the kids we did just that...

Here's our little house.

We assembled this while my parents were visiting and they helped with the building and assisted the kids in the decorating. Jenna put the candies on this side of the roof. That was a perfect Jenna job. Little Robby did a lot of the other decorating.

Our 10th Anniversary

As I posted earlier we celebrated our 10th Anniversary about a week and a half ago. We decided that we wanted to do something extra special so we went to McDonald's!

Okay, that wasn't the only thing we did! Yes, we did eat at MickeyD's mostly as a joke because Robby had threaten to propose to me there (I told him if he did I would say "No!"). Actually it was more because we were hurrying to get to...

Sedona!

So we had a fun Sedona getaway thanks to Andra and David since they watched Robby and Jenna for us.

Both of the pictures above show views from our balcony, and this one shows the views from inside our room.

And here we are 10 years older!

The owner of the place we stayed took this one of us at breakfast.

And this is the place we stayed. It was really cool because it was practically built into the red rock. Very beautiful!

Christmas Trains

Well, I am playing blog catch up again! So here's the first one... Back at the beginning of December we heard about the Christmas Train displays that you can visit throughout the East Valley. There are two near our house and so I loaded up the kids one evening when Robby was working late and took them. Basically there are several model train enthusiasts who have huge train sets set up permantly in their backyards and they decorate them for the holidays and open up their backyard for people to visit. The first one we went to was really neat, it had about 4 different tracks that spanned all along the fence of the backyard. There were buildings and little plastic people on the side and in the train. Very intricate! I thought it was quite large until we went to the second house. This guy owns a very good restaurant that is across the street from our neighborhood (Tia Rosa's) and he has a very large property. He has turned half of his very large backyard into a permanent train track! Take a look...

I wish it wasn't dark because you would be able to see better how incredibly large this track is. In fact, it is the 3rd largest model train track in the US. The track is still a work in progress, and from what we heard this guy is planning on transforming the other half of his backyard into train track too! I guess he is aiming to build the largest model train track in the US!

Now if your jaw hasn't dropped at seeing the track, this picture of his storage building for his model trains should make your jaw drop now. And this picture doesn't even show half of it! Little Robby said to me while we were there, "This is when a hobby become an obsession!"

The guy who owns it all is the white haired man seen in the right side of the this picture. This shows the 9 tracks that all lead out to the massive outdoor track. While we were there he had several trains running and about four guys monitoring everything to make sure there were no crashes. It boggled my mind!

A Trip Down Memory Lane...

Okay, I am making this post partly in fear of truly dating myself, but when I started looking back I decided I just had to share this memory with everyone. As many of you know, we celebrate our 10th Anniversary today. It is hard to believe that we have been married that long, and then on the other hand we feel like we have been married forever (that's a good thing!) So here it goes, a trip back in time to 10 years ago today, a day I will never forget and will always be grateful for...

And here they are... Mr. and Mrs. White!

Yes, we know, we look like two kids! (In case you are wondering why I am in a second dress, I had two dresses for the big day. My wedding dress and then the dress I wore to our wedding lunch with the family.)

Now, you couldn't tell from this picture that it rained on our wedding day...

Rather, I should say poured! In fact, parts of Dallas flooded!

Well, I figure if I am going to date myself with these pictures I have to do the same for the whole family! :)

I did marry into a great family!

And now it's my family's turn in the spotlight!

We were fortunate to have my Grandma there, too. At the end of the reception she missed a step on the way out the church door and got a nasty bruise on her face. As I remember it, Robby's Uncle Wayne came to the rescue.

In fact we were extra lucky to have all the grandparents there! We miss you Grandma King, Grandpa White, and Grandma Huddleston!

This picture was actually taken the day before our wedding as one of my bridal shots.

And here's my handsome man! He's my cutie!

And here we are with our wedding party. We were glad to have Andra, Donnette, Jamie, and Kastle as my bridesmaids, and Dallin, David, Tommy, and Forrest as our groomsmen.

Now I have to tell one of my favorite wedding day moments. We had planned to do a ring ceremony at the reception, and 3 1/2 year old Logan was slated to be our adorable ring bearer, but at the last minute he chickened out. Summer and I tried our best to pursuade him to do his part, but he just replied in his cute three year-old voice, "I knew I shouldn't have gotten up today!"

Being the great sister that she is, Summer filled Logan's shoes for the ring ceremony. Thanks Summer!

And here's a picture of my youngest brother-in-law, Logan! What a little sweetheart!

Here's another favorite moment... my sister Donnette was the lucky girl who caught the bouquet. Actually, I think all the other single girls were avoiding it!

The three Roberts

A sweet moment with my mom.

And finally, Robby's special dance with his mom...

and me with my dad.

This is where it all began! These past 10 years have been wonderful, and I am looking forward to what great things are in store for us in the future.

Robby's Words of Wisdom

"If you don't correct your faults when you're young, then you have to correct them twice--once in yourself and once in your children. It's like double repentance!"

We won't tell you how we came to have this bit of wisdom, but we will say that we are finding this to be true.

Arizona snow... for real!!

No really, there was snow! You will just have to read along and find out...

Saturday morning we attended a Santa's breakfast at the recreation center...

We had yummy pancakes, sausages, and milk (chocolate milk for the boys).

Jenna got to visit with Santa and have her picture taken. (I guess Robby is too old for Santa now as he didn't even want to pose for a picture with Jenna and Santa.)

But then the surprise was playing in real snow! Okay, so it wasn't created naturally, but it was as close to snow that falls from the sky as the desert of Arizona can get.

Poor Jenna didn't have any mittens, but thankfully they got cups in their goody bags and the cups made it easier for the kids to shovel up the frigid white stuff.

I love these next two picture. Look carefully because Robby is sticking his tongue out at Chap.

Then Chap retaliates against Robby with a snowball. I was pretty lucky to catch this shot, the snow ball is in the air flying on its way to the target -- Robby!

Jenna has the look of, "What is this stuff?"

That grin says it all! Little Robby loves snow. So much so, that he is hoping we move somewhere where it snows next year. I wonder if he will still think it is fun when he gets to shovel the sidewalks.