2012-Our First Year in Arizona!

I thought I would post several pictures from 2012 and tell a little about them for our year "finale" to share with family and friends.  Enjoy!

  My kids at the beginning of 2012-it was the first time I bought the girls Christmas dresses and Jonathan a new Sunday outfit!  Living so close to so much family, we had always been so blessed with hand-me-downs that we never needed to buy Sunday clothes!  Thank you so much to all of you that have given us hand-me-downs over the years!  

We love them!

Jon let the kids climb up there when he was taking down the Christmas decs and putting up his movie posters-they were pretty excited!

We went to the Pheonix children's museum for Jonathan's birthday-it was a pretty neat place!  The kids had a really super fun time!

Happy 5th birthday to Jonathan!  He was lucky and got to have Grandma and Grandpa Hansen over for his birthday!  They came and spent several days with us which was really nice.  Here is Jonathan's "Thor Hammer" birthday cake-I should have looked at the picture from the movie rather than just his toy hammer.  I would have realized that the hammer is placed differently in the mound of dirt and would have been much easier to place as a cake that way.  But he loved the cake and we had a fun time making it together!

The kids at the school carnival.  They had a lot of fun doing different activities-one of which was wall climbing.  I failed to get a picture, but they really enjoyed trying that!

Amelia and I on a bike ride-we really enjoyed many bike rides throughout the year.  We even got to go on a few with great-grandpa Robertson!  We would bike to his house, stop in and visit with him and Grandma for a bit and then ride a couple of miles with him.  We don't live as close anymore, but we may decide to go for a long bike ride and try it again soon!

 
 Dying Easter eggs!

Easter morning!

The Pat Tillman run-the kids ran a .44 mile race at the Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe.   It was amazingly crowded (there was a 4.4 mile race as well and 30,000 people ran it)!  We had no idea how popular of a race this was and expected a nice little race in which we could see the kids at the start and finish.  Nope.  It was so full of people everywhere that we decided we better stay right with the kids while they ran.  We split up and through it all we actually lost Jonathan for a bit and that was so scary!  We were so grateful to find him and held him extra close the rest of the day!  The race was pretty fun though and there was so much fun extra stuff going on along with lots of free food from Jamba Juice, Chik-fil-a, McDonalds, and lots more-it will surely become a tradition, only this time we will know just how crazy and busy it is!

Aubrey and Mariah sewing.  Mariah is working on her stick horse we had to make for a school project.  Aubrey is making a finger puppet.

Mariah with her completed stick horse.  I think it turned out pretty sweet especially since we made it up from the scraps in my fabric scrap drawer!

Amelia helping me cook in the kitchen.  All of my kids love to cook with me!  For a while they each had a weekly turn helping me make dinner.  Now it's more sporadic, but they all love any opportunity to help me cook!

 Jon's birthday!

Mariah's 7th birthday!  We had a fun little food party on the small dishes.  We made a small cake for the party and then had an icecream cake with family later.

 

My birthday-well Jon and the kids celebrated it a day before my birthday.  On my birthday I went to Portland for my little brother's wedding!  We were so happy for Jay to find such an amazing woman!!  So for my birthday, I flew out a couple of days before the wedding, along with several of my siblings.  We had a super awesome time together!  It was a beautiful place to visit and it was so fun to be with my siblings goofing off!

  

4th of July goodies we made!  These were my first cake-pops!  The only problem is they were so yummy and I ate way too many!!  The flag cake was pretty fun to make as well.  The kids helped me and were really confused how it was going to all turn out, but they finally got to see when we cut the cake! We got to enjoy the 4th of July here in Arizona!  We went to Jon's sister, Kathy's home and had a really nice time with them and James and Emily's family.  The funny thing was there was a huge rainstorm and it was the coldest 4th of July we have had!

 

The kids made mickey mouse cookies with Grandpa Robertson while we were in Utah over the summer.  He made enough for all the grandkids that were there to make their own and then showed them how to frost it to look like Mickey.  Then he let them go at it.  It was really cute and the kids had a fun time, of course, who wouldn't want to decorate a sugar cookie with their grandpa!

Our first trip to the ER-not bad since she is our 4th child.

Mariel's wedding!!  It was really neat to be a part of our sweet little nieces wedding while we were in Utah!  We love her dearly!

We heard that it was so hot that you could cook cookies in the car while you were at church.  We gave it a try!  The cookies were cooked through and very yummy!!  It was nice to come out of church and have a treat ready in the car!  We will for sure be doing that again this summer!

First day of school!

Mariah-2nd grade

Aubrey-3rd grade

 Not sure where Jonathan's first day of school pic is, but he started kindergarten this year!  This picture is actually from when grandma Robertson came to take care of me after surgery.  The kids had a lot of fun having them visit and I got a lot of rest as well as good company and good food!

 Amelia being cute!

Amelia has great grandpa Robertson wrapped around her little finger!  He adores her and she also adores him!  She is always sure to get and give a hug and kiss from him when he is around!

Mariah washing Amelia's hair in the tub!

The kids playing legos with dad-he took good care of them while I was healing from surgery!  He got out the totes of legos and dumped them in the living room.  They built and played out there for about a week!

Emily came out to Utah in September, so I took the kids out of school for a few days and we headed up there!  This is us running up beautiful Provo Canyon in the beautiful fall colors all around!

Girls night out-Emily, me, Mom, and Becca.  After going out for a delicious dinner at Costa Vida, we went to Forever 21 and picked out something super ugly for each other to try on.  It was pretty fun!

Hiking Stewart Falls with the kids!  Aubrey, James, Ben, and Grandpa Robertson hiked Timpanogus while we hiked Stewart Falls with the littler kids.  It was a beautiful hike!  I just couldn't get enough of the beautiful mountains!  Aubrey and I hiked Timpanogus early in the summer as well with Jeremy and Grandpa Robertson.  And the kids and I hiked almost to "hamburger rock" with Grandpa Robertson while we were there in July.  That is a ways past 2nd falls on the Aspen Grove trail on the Timpanogus hike.  We didn't realize how close we were until we hiked Timpanogus later!  We were only one switchback away when we had decided it was time to turn around!!  They all did really well!

The kids at Maceys getting a king-kong cone!  We are always sure to hit Maceys and get an icecream when in Utah!  You can't beat their soft-serve 50 cent cones!

Amelia helping make her birthday cake!

The kids made "animal" balloons for Amelia's birthday.  They were super cute!

Amelia loves dogs.  She got tons of dog things for her birthday.  Mariah made these dog ears for her to wear on her birthday-she was so cute!

We made a doggy cake!

Happy 2nd birthday Amelia!  Great-grandma & grandpa Robertson came.  Grandma loved the little dishes-pretty much a birthday tradition at our house!

 Aubrey's 9th birthday!  We made an icecream cake that was pretty much like a giant oreo!  We frosted on "Blue" from the movie "Rio" on there.  She had a fun pajama/movie night birthday party and they watched Rio.  They also got in a cake fight afterward while eating cake-even Jon joined in, which greatly shocked the kids at the party.  It was pretty crazy and fun!

Halloween!  

Aubrey carved her pumpkin all on her own!  Jon helped Jonathan and I helped Mariah.  Amelia was fine just eating cookies and watching while we carved.

Halloween night-Amelia was very upset to be wearing a costume-but after the first door of trick-or-treating, she was very happy to be in a costume!  We had a really fun time trick-or-treating together as a family!

The girls before church-so cute!

Aubrey had a performance at school just before Thanksgiving.  Grandma and Grandpa Robertson were in town to help with our move and for Henry's baptism.  It was really nice to have them visit again!  And it was nice that they were able to come to Aubrey's performance!  It was really cute-she was an alligator (I helped the room-mother make hats for the kids in class).

Thanksgiving at James and Emily's house.  It was so nice and Emily had adorable party favors for the kids and the tables all set so nice.  We had a really nice, relaxing Thanksgiving-it was the first Thanksgiving in which I haven't cooked in probably 15, maybe more, years!  The reason for that was we were busy packing and getting ready to move.  We also got to attend Henry's baptism that Saturday, which was really nice to be a part of too!

Grandpa Robertson was so kind and made his amazing truffle centers and brought them along with amazing, good quality chocolate to dip them in while he was here over Thanksgiving!  We had great grandma & grandpa, and Jay & Em over for dinner (hamburgers and homemade fries-yum, yum) and then we all dipped chocolates together!  The kids had a blast dipping their own and then we also came up with some great fillings-toated coconut, toasted almonds with toffee chips, cashews, and of course the amazing truffle flavors-mint, dark mint, orange, and lemon.  It was all so incredibly delicious!  I think I gained 10 lbs over the holiday!


In the nick of time, we finally were able to sign on our house and get the keys-24 hours before we had to be out of the home we were renting!  It was a close call, and I don't think I have been that stressed in a long time!  I about had a heart-attack!  We kept thinking we were going to be able to sign and get everything through for about 3 weeks before it actually happened and the seller almost backed out!  Thank you so much to family and friends for their prayers and faith because it was seriously a miracle that it actually all went through in time!  So here is our new home as of Dec. 1st.  We hope we will get to enjoy it for many many years!

Jon visited Jonathan's kindergarten class and played the violin.  He really enjoyed doing so and Jonathan loved having him come too!

 The kids making Christmas tree ornaments-we made the dough, rolled it out, cut shapes, waited several days for it to dry and then painted them!  It was really fun and it kept the kids busy while Jon and I unpacked!

Jonathan and Aubrey sewing a present for Mariah for Christmas.  They worked very well together and worked hard on this wall-hanging.

While walking home from school with the kids one day, Aubrey noticed that these two trees made the star-trek symbol!  The kids were super excited to take a picture and send it to Jon!

Our cousins, Henry & Wesley spent a night over the holidays.  Great grandma and grandpa came over and the kids performed a nativity together & we sang songs together.  Then the kids each decorated a section of this giant gingerbread man that my kids and I had made earlier.  That night it ran away!  But the kids found it and ate it for breakfast!  We had a really fun time playing games with James, and Jay & Em.  Fun times!

Emily, Emily, and I (daughters that live in AZ) made mom 3 pillow covers for her Christmas gift.  They really turned out beautiful!  I want to make a set for me!  Maybe I will make some for whomever I have for Christmas next year!

 
We actually got our Christmas tree up only a week after moving in!  It was a live one and it barely lived until Christmas!  I don't know if we will go for a live one again here in Arizona.  It was really pretty and smelled really nice though!

Great Grandmas's 93rd birthday!  She had mentioned when coming to one of kids birthdays that she thought it was really fun that they got as many balloons as they were turning for them to pop and there would be a prize/toy/candy or something in each balloon.  Jokingly, she said she wanted someone to blow up 93 balloons for her birthday.  Well, the kids and I thought that would be really fun.  We put chocolates in each one and blew them all up!  We put them in garbage bags and delivered them to her house!  She was elated!  She just loved popping them and had the kids help her too!

New Years Eve!  We made some yummy food!  White bean dip, guacamole, a bacon cheddar cheese ball (it was so delicious-the taste you hope for when you buy one, but it has that processed flavor-this was homemade, no processes flavor), artichoke, garlic, spinach dip-also amazing!!-little smokies with bacon wrapped around them, apple toffee dip, and the classic onion dip to go with potato chips-only this year I used greek yogurt for 1/2 of the sour cream and it was delicious and far less bad for you!  The kids helped me make most of the food too!  In-fact, Aubrey made muddy-buddies all on her own while I was making the artichoke and bean dips!

 
Jon built a big fire (burned our Christmas tree) while the kids jumped on the tramp and I sat close to the fire freezing cold (Arizona has really made me not tolerate cold at all).  They taped glow-sticks to them so they would glow in the dark and did funny moves on the tramp.  The pictures show the kids well, but in the dark, we could only see the glow sticks.  Jonathan and Aubrey are insects of some type and Mariah is an animal/ninja of some type.

We could pretend we are in the snow, but really this is just a gust of ash that blew in front of the camera right when I took the picture.

Here is Amelia smiling for the camera!  While we were out there, we also did sparklers.  We didn't get any pictures though.  The kids love those things though!

We came in, took hot baths, and got some more snacks and sat down for a fun game of "Word on the Street" (a Christmas present).

I just had to try it and they turned out SO adorable!  Amelias first braids!  And, as you can see, we played some Mario Cart on nintendo 64 as we waited for midnight to come around!  It was a super fun New Years-ending with the traditional singing of "Scumps" with drinks in hand (from Sleeping Beauty-a tradition started by my brother James-not sure when or how or why, but it began and we have carried it on).  Then we linked arms and drank to the new year!

It's been a full year with many memories-some wonderful, some fun, some hard, and some close to the heart.  We look forward to another wonderful year!  Each year we see the blessing of our Heavenly Father in our lives and we are so grateful for our knowledge of the Savior and His sacrifice for us.