last Christmas of the decade

Cooper and Hannah were able to fly to New Mexico for Christmas with the Christensen's We missed the Kodras, WA is just to far to travel for all the holidays. Christmas Sunday in our matching outfits, green, gold and black this year.

Chi

Grandma and Grandpa

Aunt Stasia has been teaching Elle piano for the semester. They learned a Jingle Bell duet for Christmas. Elle loves her piano with Aunt Stasia, she is such a fun teacher,

We did a family evening in Santa Fe dinner at Dion's and bowling at new place in teh mall we had never tired before after everyone was done working on the 23rd.

It was the kids very first time bowling, i think they liked it especially when they got to use the dinosaur to help.

the next day we all went ice skating together. I love our out door rink, wyatt tried it for the first time and got pretty confident with a cart. Elle graduated from the cart and and Conway picked up right were he left off last year.

Christmas Eve was a little different, for the first time in Britton's and I's life we were not at one of our parents for Christmas Eve. Even living in White Rock we have slept at my parents house Christmas eve for Christensen Christmases

The big gift this year was a Nintendo switch! being our first gaming console we all need a little more practice but it was fun to reminisce about the good old N64 days and play some Mario Kart and Smash brothers again. 

The kids all got book pillows, new robes and other clothes and shoes they needed. Also got a couple fun family games we are excited to try out like Disney code names.

Christmas Tree hunting with the Whittons

Preschool for Wyatt

Wyatt started Preschool this year. It has worked out so nicely with each kid to team teach with my friend Shai, her 3rd daughter is the same age as Wyatt and she has a little boy  Ryker's age. So she teaches Tuesdays and i take her baby and I teach Thursday's and she take Rykers, I love teaching and enjoy spending that time with Wyatt and Brooklyn. It is going to be a really fun year.

1st grade and 4th

We absolutely love Chamisa, they both were just excited this year. They knew what to expect in the primary and middle team pods and knew that they were going to have fun with all their friends they had missed over the summer. (mom was the worst at getting play dates this summer)

Sure to love these kiddos we are blessed with. Britton luckily had a break in his crazy travel schedule in August and got to participate in all the first day of school fun.

We had flown in from Las Vegas the night before and had to wake up the little boys to get to school on time, hence the sleepy grumpy faces.

4th grade and 1st grade got some good ones.

Conway is so thorough and thoughtful he loves science and math and wishes he could just think about and discuss things with out writing it down, but he is getting better.

Ellese loves to try new things and is the bravest girl I have ever seen especially if she doesn't have time to think about it she will jump right in and try the hardest things and rock at it!

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas

Not really but we did take advantage of Britton';s 7 week work assignement in Vegas to enjoy a mostly free vacation., the best week for our schedule was the 3 days before the first day of school, so we threw caution to the wind and went on our last fling of the summer

Britton racked enough points flying back and forth from Las Vegas in July that we all got to fly for free

Britton got the easy row for sure.

and this girl was not the problem in my row. Ryker did not sleep on the flight and it was not easy keeping him happy, grateful the flight was not any longer

Landed late Sunday night. Kids thought the mini van was the coolest, to different sky lights and lots of cool features.

The Lambson train everyone had a bag to carry and pull.

Britton went to work early Monday, and we got to explore our Luxor hotel

the Luxor is the location of this show on the strip

That night for dinner we went to a Hard Rock Cafe, Wyatt appreciates a good restaurant experience and was so cute when Dad took Ryker out so the rest of us could finish our meal, Wyatt's comment, "That's better, now we can enjoy our dinner. " LOL

A huge blessing Tuesday Britton, didn't have to go to the testing sight and was able to stay with us at the hotel while he worked remotely for a few hours.

 

We surprised the kids with a fun aquarium visit, got to see some cool sharks and other fun exhibits

The food court lunch. Part of our aquarium package was the amazing pool at the Mandalay Bay hotel, amazing wave pool, lazy river and great kid section Ryker loved. We spent the rest of the day there, Britton was the only one to get sunburned.

Sure do have fun with these party people 

 Conway edited this photo of them at the hotel waiting to check out

Headed home Wednesday

Pretty sure they hung a sign that said "no climbing in this window" after we left, little monkeys.

Made it back to NM at 8pm this picture is a good representation of how the flight went of my struggle trying to keep Ryker happy and still had to drive home but it was all worth it for one last summer fling thank goodness the first day of school is only a half day.