Christmas, Trip to Yucca, and Grandma Loudon

Best day of their little lives. It was great.

Trying on her new clothes

The next morning we drove to Yucca Valley for Jude's grandmother's funeral. It was sad, but also really good for Jude to see a lot of people that he hadn't seen for a long time. For some reason we didn't take many pictures while we were there, but we did get one of a sweet rainbow on our drive home.

Here are some pictures courtesy of Megan...thanks auntie Megat!

Jude and Megan with cousins Brooklyn and Katie

Jude's cousin Tanner and his girls- Katie and Madison

Aunt Kelly and her fiance

Madison and Ryan
Becky with Katie

On our way home, we stopped in Fresno to see my grandma Loudon who is in a rest home there. So sad. She kept asking aunt Robin "who are they?" over and over. But worse was when she would ask her, "can you take me home?" It broke my heart. It was really hard to see her like that. Even though she didn't recognize me I was really glad we got a chance to see her. My poor poor grandma.

Sledding on Christmas Eve

Another great thing about living here--we have awesome winter weather in the 50s and 60s, but we can drive 45 minutes and find snow for sledding. We want to do this every year on Christmas Eve. So fun

Christmas Tree at Apple Hill

One of our favorite new traditions that we started in Pennsylvania was going and cutting down our own Christmas tree. I was so happy when I found out we could do that here in California. So after the primary Christmas party we followed the Baddley's to Apple Hill. I think it's on the way to South Lake Tahoe (??) It's beautiful up there! We spent the day riding horses, going on a train ride with Santa, having lunch, and picking out the perfect Christmas tree.

Here we are in front of our pretty tree--it was a perfect fit for our living room.

Jude didn't get to saw it down himself, this guy did it. Not as cool as PA, but whatev

Beautiful scenery

The kids with Santa at the church. We couldn't believe Scarlett was okay with this.

Lane is awesome

Thanksgiving, Ivy's Birthday and Baptism

Everybody came to our place for Thanksgiving this year. It was great! Uncle Marc got sick and didn't make it, but everyone else was here--even my dad. Ivy turned 8 on Saturday and was baptized that day so it was a good way to get everyone to California to see our new place.

In the backyard with Grandma

Surrounding uncle Bryan

The baptism was great. Edie gave a talk on baptism that was unbelievable. She is so sweet and such a natural in front of people-she got up there and owned it. My super talented Ivy played the piano and sang "When I am Baptized". She did it perfectly, of course. It was so cute. She is amazing! My mom was suddenly super sick with food poisoning or something right before and couldn't come (we were all very sad about that) so Al had to read her talk on the Holy Ghost, but she did a good job. All the kids were super naughty and loud and there weren't enough adults to balance out the crazy, but other than that it was great! Ivy said it was perfect, and that's all that matters. It was good.

Halloween and Bishops Pumpkin Farm

Cleopatra

Ivy looked so cute for her class party

Going to pick us some pumpkins

Riding Horses at Bishops

Three little pigs show