Ending an awesome year of Gods goodness and staring a new one

We have had such a great year in so many ways. God has been so good to our family and the stuff in this blog is proof of His blessing. We brought the year to a close at Nana's house with stew and the banging of pots at 8:00. Then all the aunts and uncles and the Slushers and Spikings came over to our house and we celebrated until 3:45!!! The kids even made it to 1:45!!! We finally said they had to go to sleep! Then everyone was up and going at about 8 and we had a huge pancake breakfast with everybody. What a great way to start the year!!!

Our little Tarzan turns 4!!!

Our little Tarzan with a sweet heart turned 4 on the 22nd! He insisted that he have his party at Chuck E Cheese. So we got all the family and cousins and some close family friends, 5 large pizzas, 30 drinks, and 1,000 tokens and partied it up at Chuck E Cheese. He was so happy. HE doesn't like cupcakes so we had cupcakes and glazed donuts to eat for dessert. What a sweet boy Jack is in our family. He is a true gift and treasure to us!!!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning is one of my favorite mornings of the year. Listening to the kids walk down the hallway and hearing them talk about the gifts and the excitement in their voices is sooo contagious and so fun to hear.

We got up about 8 and had doughnuts really fast and started opening the gifts. What a fun time! We played all day long with all the toys. We just went from toy to toy and played. What a great day! Josh's big gift was his new bike, Mimi's was justice luggage and $50 gift card to Justice and Jacks big gift was a mini trampoline. They loved all their gifts!

Christmas Eve

We always spend Christmas Eve day with the Nichols side of the family. It starts with brunch at Nanas house. After brunch we opened gifts and then we played all afternoon with all the new toys. Dinner was amazing, the cousins reinacted the nativity and then it was birthday party for Jesus time. Nana always makes the time together fun and memorable. We got home early enough to get kids in bed and get our house ready for Christmas morning.

more desert photos!

Dunes!

School got out friday before Christmas and we were off to the dunes in Glamis saturday morning! We needed a break to catch a breath before Christmas hit. It was a blast. It was our family, plus Trevor and Taylor, the Boyers, Travis and Tara and family, Ty and J.T, the Avila Family, and then Nana and Baca and the Gibbons and Jones came for one day. It was beautiful weather while it was raining non stop at home. On Sunday we had 18 kids riding motos all around camp! What a site!

There was also a lesson learned about Gods angels being with us ALL the time. Troy and Dave Gibbons had Matt, Mimi and Taylor in the big buggy. They were coming in from a big ride and Troy fishtailed it. As he fishtailed the buggy flipped! We all ran. Mimi was first out and ran like lightning. Everyone else was climbing out of seatbelts and seemed ok except Troy and Taylor. Troy was pretty shook up becuase he didnt see Mimi get out and thought she was trapped under the buggy and Taylor had the wind knocked out of her and her side hurt. We decided to rush her to the hospital. She was a trooper. They ended up flying her home to San Diego and she stayed in Childrens Hospital for 2 days. All was good, but what a reminder that God is ALWAYS with us protecting us. The crash could have been much worse and we were grateful there was no serious injury.

Josh and Trevor drove the little buggy nonstop and took little ones on rides around camp. They were so good about taking care of their goggles, checking their gas level before rides, and digging themselves out when they got stuck.

What an awesome trip!

Nichols Thanksgiving Picture

We were able to finally get all of us together for a family photo! It happens once a year and is usually by a last minute chance, but we got it!!! Everyone is getting so big!