Bonus Disneyland Trip

Bonus! Chris' parents got an amazing deal on a couple condos in Newport Beach if they would just listen to a little speech about time-shares. Lucky for us, we got to share in the goodness and also lucky that Disneyland isn't too far away from the condos. So, off we went on a super quick fun weekend in Disneyland! Chris didn't have any time off, so we left Friday after work and got into Newport at almost 11pm. Then the next morning we got up bright and early to get into the park. We didn't tell the kids that we were going to Disneyland, so it was a big happy surprise for them. The weather is COLD in January, but that didn't stop us from having a great time. There are 275 pictures of just one day because we had so much fun playing with our new camera!

Wish I could squeeze more in this collage, but just be grateful I didn't use all 275 pictures!

The next day, we attended church in a Newport Beach ward. After church we had to get back to AZ so Chris could go back to work on Monday. Wish we could have stayed longer, but I'll take all I can get of The Happiest Place on Earth.

Christmas!

I love Christmas. I love the smells, the food, the family, the tree, the lights. OK, so I don't love all the craziness of getting to Christmas and all the work to get the gifts done, but I love giving gifts to my family, especially my kids.

Favorite memories from this year:

1. Visiting my family in Vegas for a few days to exchange gifts. This year is a "Partridge year" for Christmas. We trade each year between my family and Chris' family so we can be even. I took the opportunity to travel with the kids for a couple of days to say Merry Christmas to my family before Christmas.

2. Enchilada Christmas Eve dinner. It's a tradition in Chris' family to eat them on Christmas Eve. Chris' grandma makes the best enchiladas ever!

3. Sibling and cousin gift exchange. Because there are so many people and ever increasing little people, it's so nice to draw a name and buy a gift for just that person. Plus I find that I think of that person a little more through the holiday season and enjoy doing something for them. This year all of Chris' family came in town. I love it when we are all together! I think most everyone is represented with these 2 pictures.

Sorry for the terrible red eye in this picture, my photo program wouldn't take them all out for some reason.

4. Spending time with my little family and see them get excited about Christmas. This year was the year of the pillow pet. Santa also brought a bike for Katelyn, a scooter for Megan, and a train set for Adam. I can't find those pictures! They must all be on the video camera.

5. Family picture time! Don't we all love our picture taken (insert sarcasm here)? Well, it was a necessity this year since all the Partridge's were together and there were 3 new little people not represented in a family picture. Also, all the other kiddos are getting so grown up! The experience might have felt like a mess. Well, at least for me. Adam was having a horrible day. But the pictures turned out great!

Here's the whole family!

Keeping the kids busy while waiting to get everything set up

Adam with his cousin Bradley. Bradley was the only one who could get Adam to be happy.

Beautiful Katelyn

I really don't like pictures of myself, but everyone else was represented...I was feeling left out. 

Chris and my climbing Megan.

Da Girls. This was the easiest picture to take! There are not very many little girls so there were less distractions.

6. Big Mahalo to Scott and Cheryl for bringing the most exciting gift of the year. Each family now has a super amazing camera! I still need to learn how to use it to its full potential, but even for me just "pointing and clicking" still makes an amazing picture. The picture of the whole family was taken by our photographer. The rest of the pictures above in the family set were taken by our amazing new cameras. Wow the difference when you have the best tools!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

...and busy, and crazy, and fun, etc, etc, etc. Here's our pre-Christmas run down.

We had a Ward (congregation) Christmas breakfast. The girls were sadly at a dance rehearsal and didn't get to sit on Santa's lap this year.

We had a neighborhood dance show. It was COLD and WET this year! Sorry the pictures are so bad. I accidentally left my camera in Las Vegas at Thanksgiving. These are taken by my phone.

Megan is dancing to a Phineas and Ferb Christmas song. She is second from the right. Trust me. She's there.

Katelyn is third from the right. Again, just going to have to trust me.

Megan had a Kindergarten Holiday concert. She did a great job! Everyone made reindeer shirts from their footprint and hand prints. I smiled and laughed through the whole show!

The girls had their annual Jeanne's School of Dance Christmas show.

Phew! And somewhere in there, we got all the shopping done to head into the big day!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was spent in Las Vegas with my family and we had a great time! My brother lives in town and my sister was able to bring her family down from Utah so we were all there. And my Grandma Basta got to come too! I love Thanksgiving time. It always means family time to me and I love having everyone together.

One of the kids' favorite things to do at my Mom and Dad's is to play in the backyard.

Sadly, Adam got pink eye on the day of Thanksgiving. That was a nightmare trying to keep him clean and away from everyone else! Eek!

These group of cousins have a great time together. They enjoy putting on mini plays or shows for us almost every time they get together. Here's the Thanksgiving version.

Because everyone was together, my mom requested an updated grandkid picture. We decided with this many kids that it would be easier to go to a park with a nice camera and do the pictures ourselves. I think they turned out great and the kids did a really good job. Big thanks to Kristin the photographer and her brother's camera. They are all such cute little blondies, you almost can't tell who belongs to which parents! We sure love these kids!

Phoenix Zoo Day

It's Veteran's Day and the kids have the day off. What am I going to do with all the monkeys? Go to the Zoo! Chris' work provided us with free Phoenix Zoo tickets that we hadn't used yet, so today was a great day to use them up. Katelyn even got to invite a friend to enjoy the day. Here's some of our favorite picture moments:

Happy Halloween

Presenting the Halloween bunch from 2011: we have Princess Leia complete with wig,  Dorthy complete with red ruby slippers, and Thomas the Tank engine who "choo-chooed" his way through trick or treating. We had a great year!

 Each year the school puts on a costume parade. The older grades get to watch while the younger grades get to dress up and be the parade.

Megan as Dorthy. "There's no place like home."

Katelyn as Princess Leia. "I don't know who you are, or where you came from, but from now on, you do as I tell you. Okay?"

Another Halloween tradition is crashing Chris' parent's neighborhood Halloween party to grab dinner and play carnival games. 

After the neighborhood party, we went trick-or-treating to Great Grandma-ma and Grandpa Long's house. Then we made it home to go to a few friends in our own neighborhood. As always, the kids have too much candy and had a great time getting it! Sounds like a perfect Halloween!

It's that pumpkin time of year again!

This year we got a Groupon to go to a family farm close to our home to pick pumpkins and play around in the hay. There were games, mazes, horses, and a lot of dirt...oh, and pumpkins.

To get to the pumpkins you had to ride a horse pulled cart. The driver was kind and let the kids take turns "driving." Scary!

Katelyn's turn

   

Megan's turn

 

Adam's turn

When we got to the pumpkin "patch" location, I was expecting farm land where the kids would get to pick their pumpkin from the vine. That was not what we found. It was a grouping of pumpkins set on a bunch of hay barrels. Little bit of a let down for me, but the kids were still excited to pick their own pumpkin!