Girls Out

We had our first girl's night out with the girls in the Bartlett family. We went to Terra Mia to eat; the pizza and pasta were super duper yummy. This place is probably one of the best italian restaurants in Utah county. Later we went to see a movie and we had a great time free of kids. =)

SLC here we are

My sweet sister-in-law put our names into a raffle to get tickets to go see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra with a special presentation from David Archuleta at Temple Square. We got the tickets in the mail a few weeks ago, and I was so excited to go and to have a nice date with my guapo husband!
The traffic was a little crazy but we got to Salt Lake safe and sound. We walked a little through Temple Square and the lights were splendid. I love Salt Lake during christmas. Back to the concert, the stage was beautifully decorated. The music was amazing and inspiring. Oh, I forgot to say they had dancers for the intro song and at the end. It was amazing! Pressident Eyring and President Uchtdorf were at the concert as well. David Archuleta sang many Christmas songs. I love his voice. He is a great example for the youth in our church. David even sang a song in Spanish for all the latinos because he wanted to honor his culture, which was pretty cool I thought. My kids should be that way as well when they are older--happy to be half Peruvian, a quarter Australian, and a quarter American. We had some trouble getting into the theatre, but overal we had a good time with Mike and Suzette in SLC.

Chilling in the backyard

The nice thing about Arizona is that we have lovely weather during the winter time. It is so nice, mid 70s everyday and sunny. Noah & Emma enjoy going outside to play with the chalk and to fill up their bucket with little pebble rocks. They can be entertained outside for hours. I get a lot of things done while the kids are playing.

Ward Christmas Party

Our ward had the Christmas party this year a bit early. I loved it! Christmas season is my favorite. I love feeling the spirit of Christmas. People are kinder, think of others more, and are different during the Christmas season. We enjoyed the Primary program, the food, and the wonderful company. Santa arrived at the church and all the kids had a blast. Noah liked Santa but Emma did not. Hopefully next year she will do better.

Thanksgiving surprise

 Joe had a very special thanksgiving plan for our family. Joe had prepared a treasure hunt for me on Thrusday, November 18th. I was a little weird about it because I was trying to think about all the speccial occasions possible in my head and see if I had forgoten something important but I had not. I continued with the treasure hunt and after I found all my clues I realized that we where going to go to Utah for thanksging. I was very happy since I had not been back to Utah for almost a year and we have never spend a thanksgiving dinner with our families since we moved to Arizona. So I only had 1 day to do all the laundry and 1 day to pack.  

The drive to Utah wasn't too bad. We did have to stop 3 to 5 times for Noah to go the potty. The cool thing is that he did his business every time he called it with no accicents. Now the funny part is that he kept asking to go potty after we had already passed an exit. So he either had to wait or he had to go potty by the trees.

We had a fabouls week in Utah. We visited family and had a wonderful thanksgiving! I am very thankful for my husband who tries to make me happy every day. I am thankful for my children! Parenting can be hard but I sure love them! I am thankful for everyone in our families (Lovon and Bartlett) My thankful list is probably way too long and it never ends because everything I have was given by a kind heavenly Father.

Superstition Mountains

Joe went hiking to the Superstition mountains a couple weeks ago with some people from work. He left home at 5:30 a.m. and didn't come back home until 5:00p.m. The hike was about 4 to 5 hours long and he had a lot of fun. Way to go Joe!

Peek-a-boo

Emma loves to play peek-a-boo especially with daddy. She laughs so hard after Joe "finds" her.

As halloweenish as it gets

Halloween came by fast this year. We, for the first time, carved our own pumpkins as a family. A friend gave Noah a mini pumpkin, which was so sweet of her! So he got to color his pumpkin with crayons. He loved his pumpkin. At first he thought it was a ball and kept rolling it an throwing it. Good thing it didn't break. Currently his pumpkin is in his room, on top of his dresser and it is facing him. How funny is that! Joe carved a scary spider on his pumpkin. He didn't want too but I convinced him to do something new in his pumpkin. Of course I had to draw it for him, but I was happy he carved it. I chose to carve a scary witch, which was fun! We put candles inside the pumpkins and they looked great! I, for the first time, made a craft for halloween, my own candy corn wreath. It was easy and cute and it fit perfectly in my door.

As always, I left the costumes until the last minute and it ended up fine. I chose for us to be smurfs this year. So Noah, Emma, and I were smurf and smurfettes. Joe refused to be a smurf; so, I decided he would go along with us as gargamel (the bad guy on the smurfs). I could not find a black robe for Joe anywhere that was cheap. He just had to wear a black t-shirt, black shorts, red socks and his tennis shoes because I knew I would not find red tennis shoes either. I bought everything blue for the kids at walmart for $1. Walmart had a sale on the kids clothes, so it was perfect! I made the hats from one of Joe's white t-shirts. Noah wore Emma's white tights. For me, I wasn't as lucky as with the kid's costumes. I bought my blue tights, blue shirt, and white shoes at Ross for $13. I found my white dress at a garage sale for $1. That was lucky!

We started trick or treating on Tuesday. The library had a halloween activity for the kids. First we sang songs and then went on the trick or treating getting some candy, bookmarks, silly bands, etc. On Saturday, we had the ward's trunk or treat. We ate some good chili, went on a walk cake, and then we had the trunk or treat. All the trunks were decorated, we even decorated ours...haha we have never done it before. The coolest trunk was probably the one that had Ms. Peanut and an elephant. The elephant's trunk was the arm of one of the sisters. It was a super cute idea! Noah and Emma absolutely loved the elephant trunk.

Noah is 3

My big boy turned 3 last Saturday. We had a very special day for him. On Saturday morning we show him his presents to get him excited about his birthday, but he didn't open them until later. He had a train theme party at the McCormick Railroad park in Scottsdale. We invited a few friends and family to come and enjoy the beautiful weather at the park. Noah had fun with his friends and also enjoyed getting on the train ride at the park. I love Noah very much and I'm blessed to have him in our family.

Enjoying the pizza

Train ride

Noah got this present from dada and mama