Updates

Hiking in the Petroglyph national park here in Abq....






Playing at the local airport... this nice man gave the kids a tour of his airplane. He had just flown down from Durango to pick up his grand-daughter... happened to be a retired air force general who used to work at Williams Airforce Base in Mesa and knew one of Tad's old bosses.


Making Christmas crafts...


Painting our house...


Paige being silly....


What good looking kids... One of Tad's many Sundays at Church by himself.... got them dressed, and even fixed their hair.


We saw Santa for the first time at my work's Breakfast with Santa last week. Everyone got to sit and tell him what they wanted. Darci got scared after a minute of staring at Santa.




Darci in her Christmas dress



More snow at the Temple


Playing in the snow










After my surgery... the incision is a little bigger than I thought it would be. I was at the hospital all day and when we got home at 5, I went to bed and slept until the next day. Thank you to my mom for coming to help with the kids so Tad could be at the hospital with me. All of the tests have come back negative so it looks like they got all the melanoma and that is good news. Now, I'll just have a few dermatologist appts throughout the year.

Darci's First Steps

Darci has taken 4 or 5 steps at a time several times now, but still crawls most of the time. This was the first time she took a couple at a time before Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving

We went back to AZ over the holidays. First to Thatcher for a few days to visit Nana and Grandpa and Dave, Susan and Caroline, and Patty, then on to Mesa to stay with my sister and see all the family in the valley. We were sad that we missed some because of sicknesses. Darci ended up getting croup for a few days and thank you so much Carol for supplying us with a breathing machine and medicine. We would NOT have survived without that. Her breathing was TERRIBLE. We hope everyone else is feeling better again too! Next time I think I'll leave Tad at home so I'll be able to visit and chat with everyone that we didn't get to see this trip.

Birthday party for my grandpa Tom at my Aunt's enormous house in Tucson...

Paige is finally able to wear a braid - only the hair on the very top of her head is long enough.

Trip to Thatcher....

Somebody please tell me where I can submit her pictures for some hollywood commercial... she is so CUTE!!!

It took a day or two, but Lulu had SO much fun with Addie and Kuli.

Darci with a ponytail instead of piggy tails...

Craft time with Nana

All the little Indians...

Derek was so happy we were able to have Jack spend a few days with us in Thatcher...

Girl time... Paige and Caroline "helping" Nana cook yummy desserts

Trip to Mesa.....

The weather was so nice in the evenings, we were able to ride bikes around in short sleeves....

Walking around the new part of Fashion Square Mall.. Albuquerque eat your heart out, you don't have anything NEAR as nice...

Our kids and my sister's kids

Back home, decorating for Christmas....

So nice to finally have a fireplace...

Got a real tree for $30 bucks this year.

Snow at the Albuquerque Temple. It snowed on the east side for at least half a day. I hate to say it but I'm actually doing good in the cold weather. It's not near as bad (so far) as I thought it would be. It was 11degrees last night, 16 degrees getting in the van to run errands this morning and 30 degrees this afternoon at the zoo. And we were outside most of the day. It helps to have a good pair of boots and a sweater. I think I might need to do some more shopping. But for a person who FROZE every winter in Gilbert, I'm doing OK here.

The last of the family photos

Here is the last of the family photos. Again, I was real happy with how they turned out. If anyone in Albuquerque needs a good (and inexpensive) photographer, check out Leah's website at www.DPbyLeah.com. She got a ton of shots off in about 40 minutes and gave us the CD so we can print what we want.