Thanksgiving

I decided to put our Polar Express experience with the Thanksgiving pictures (even though it was one of our main Christmas gifts) because we actually rode it the day before Thanksgiving when all of the Johnsons were together.  The kids knew we had a surprise for them, that it was part of Christmas, and that it was big, but they had such a hard time guessing what it was.  We picked them up after school (early out day) and drove a couple hours, which was rough because Camille wasn't feeling very well. But eventually we made it to Williams (right by the Grand Canyon) and their guesses started to include trains.  We prompted, "What kind of trains?"  And, "Why do you think you see so many kids around in their pajamas?"  But they still didn't catch on, surprisingly, because we had just watched the movie with them a few days earlier.  Finally when we entered the gift shop they all knew and were so excited, and that was definitely one of those so-worth-it parenting experiences.  We have been wanting to ride it for years.  Trains were Bryce's main obsession as a toddler and preschooler and he would watch Polar Express all year (which made us crazy).  He called it Po-er Eck-wah.  Now Gabe and Camille love trains, although not as much as Bryce, and we decided we did NOT want to miss out on this little kid window that is so magical.

Here is everyone taking pictures with Mrs. Clause, and listening to her tell us about the cookies she baked just for us for the train ride.

Meeting up with the cousins was so exciting as they were just all figuring it out as well.  We also met up with Greg, Nickelle and Macie, and Neil right after this picture.

It's so fun to watch them get older and gain more independence.  For the first little while on the train the older kids didn't even know their parents were there.  They were cute with Gabe, too.  He is on his own age-wise, and in an awkward spot fitting in just a bit better with the baby group but starting to morph into the big kid group.

This was our cute host/chef and all the guys.

The Aprils together, of course.

Santa's village.

Santa handed out bells.

And there is Camille hugging Santa.  I can't understand for the life of me how she can be so afraid of my friends and so trusting of this big, loud, stranger.

This was Thanksgiving day.  I usually host Thanksgiving for whatever friends and family make it down to our beautiful AZ  in November, and I've gotten quite confidant in my turkey-cooking skills...but I was really happy to pass the torch to Christy this year now that she lives in Glendale!  Especially not really knowing how I was going to feel at that time with the morning sickness. At the feast we had our family, Neil, Greg's family, and my parents.  It made the hugest difference in the world to have three kitchens combining the courses.  Usually we have lots of people, but only 4 burners and one stove and we end up cooking from early in the morning until late in the afternoon.  Christy had the tables decorated beautifully (never my forte) and somehow I didn't take a picture!

But I did get these gems:

I'm not even sure how this started, but I'm pretty sure it was about as juvenile as a double-dog-dare.  The guys and the oldest cousins took a plunge into the freezing cold pool!  November goes back and forth between being beautiful and being chilly, and this was a very-chilly-for-AZ kind of day!

Brynn jumped twice...

Bryce waded in about half-way.  Crazies.

We played a lot of football.  Brynn's trying really hard to accept that she's going to have to do boy things with all of her boy cousins, just like I did, and she is loving having them around.  It doesn't hurt that they totally treat her like gold.

We also had a game night with EVERYONE staying at our house and it was pretty much the best night ever.  When I first joined the Johnson family, we would all get together and play board games into the night and my new sister and brothers would make me laugh until my stomach was sore.  Then we moved to AZ, we each had a couple of kids, but we kept up game nights when we'd stay with Kelly and Christy to visit.  Now we all have LOTS of kids when we get together and game nights are hard to come by.  I love that we were able to manage it.  It was a really great Thanksgiving break.

Halloween 2015

We had a great Halloween this year.  At the time it was all going on, I was feeling a little bad about not doing some of our traditions (bake a pumpkin pie on Halloween Eve, caramel apples, stuff like that).  Because this is my third pregnancy where I've been due at the end of April, I kind of know what to expect.  So I knew I'd still be morning sick at Halloween, but I had no idea just HOW sick I'd be all through October.  And at that point I was just getting so tired of it, I kind of checked out in October.  But looking back at these pictures I feel a lot better about our Fall. 

We stopped having our regular playgroup this semester and Gabe has really missed his friends, so I set up a little Halloween party for them all.  I had been trying all month to get Camille to dress up as something, anything!  But it was always, "NO!  I don't want it."  Well, for the party she finally accepted the white sheet on her to dress up as a ghost.  

And it lasted about five minutes.  Here are Camille, Gabe, Tanner, and Natalia.  We missed Maddie that day!

We went on a little walk to check out the Halloween decorations on our block and they were too cute holding hands.

Another fun thing we did was to go to Schnepf Farms.  This place is seriously right next to our house and we go all the time, except for in the Fall when everything is up and running and you have to pay to get in.  But this year I wanted to just pay for it and let the kids ride the rides and have some pumpkin chili.  This was a cute little pig/goat race.  Those Aprils just get along so well.

Marty and Gabe are up front having the time of their lives.  Sometimes my timid kid surprises me.

And Grandpa, Bryce, and Brynn are in back not so sure.  Bryce cried and didn't want to get back on, which was disappointing because he was so brave about all the coasters at Worlds of Fun.  But then Marty tried riding in the back and found out that the bar doesn't go all the way down and it was really scary to fly out of your seat!  So Bryce did a lot better the next time he rode and sat up front.  Brynn had fun too, despite this picture.

We weren't planning on letting the kids ride the horses, but Brynn has been so into horses lately and desperate to ride one.  So we let them pay us back for it when we got home.  Camille LOVED her horse and was petting it the entire time.

This was for the literature parade at school.  We are VERY into Harry Potter at our house.  Bryce read the first two with Marty, and Brynn is on the fourth right now.  They decided very quickly what they wanted to dress up as for the parade.

Grandma was able to come watch with us today and it was so fun to have her there - I still can't believe they live here!

I love his silly faces!

Later that night was the ward trunk-or-treat so we had to get Ron and Ginny ready!  I gave Camille a bath and tried my hardest to blow-dry her hair strait, but this was the best I could do.  She has some serious curl in that hair!

I can't believe my two year old has such long hair!

It helped a little to use the flat iron.  And I know this is way too many pictures, but I loved all of her faces and couldn't pick, so...

I went as a muggle/Harry Potter fan/pregnant lady in a shirt that's too small.  Depends who you ask.

I love Bryce's expression.  Because I'm his mom, I can tell that it's not a scary wizard face.  It's his "I'm DONE taking pictures" face.

Millie spent most of the night running in and out of a space in the brick wall with Gabe and Bryce pretending that it was platform 9 and 3/4.  Oh, and eating candy in the back of the van.

The next day was Halloween.  Brynn wanted to switch it up and be a baby.  

Gabe pulled the vampire costume out of the bin.

A friend let Bryce borrow their "official" Harry Potter robe.

The Johnson's came down from Glendale.

Camille's costume was just kind of a bad idea.  She hates princess stuff and I try to honor that. I don't push princess on her at all, I bagged up all of Brynn's 2 and 3T princess clothes (which leaves her with a pretty minimal wardrobe).  I keep the non-princess books in her room to read.  But she loves Anna from Frozen.  I got a good deal on this costume and I thought it would be super cute.  She wouldn't dress up for the play-group party, wouldn't keep her cape on at the trunk-or-treat, but you're only two once and I wanted her to dress up for Halloween!  I can show her Anna anything and she will get super excited, but as soon as I showed her the costume she got angry.  20 minutes later I gave up and went to retrieve a Captain America shield thinking she likes to play with it and maybe she'd carry it around for just a little while.  But when I came back Marty had worked his magic and she was looking like a super darling Anna!

Right along with her super darling cousin, Reese!

This picture was as good as I could do!

In our neighborhood their is a street that goes ALL OUT at Halloween.  Almost every house is 10 times the haunted house I usually see out trick-or-treating.


One of them was full torture devices.

After that Christy and I came home with Camille to hand out candy.  See, Camille?  Dressing up and asking for candy is not such a bad deal!

The weather was perfect.  It's the first Halloween in a while, it seems, that wasn't super hot.  Last year it was so hot that we had to come home for water and a break after the first block because everyone was so sweaty under their costumes.  I really wanted to hold it against AZ, but then I remembered how often I had to wear a winter coat over my costume (I specifically remember that the year I was a ballerina) and I figure that's worse.

When the guys and big kids came home we all watched Star Wars Episode 3 (the guys are gearing up for the new movie).  For the record, I was totally opposed and said my kids were too tender.  And for the record, Gabe came out of his room two hours after we put him to bed whimpering and asking all kinds of questions about what the red stuff was all over Anakin and saying he didn't like that movie.  But that's just, ya know, for the record. ;)