Santa, Snow and Family

Christmas morning arrived with a bang. We had Santa, snow and family--the only thing missing was Tom, who had to head to Frankfurt on Christmas Eve. For such is the life of a pilot :( Nonetheless, it was a good Christmas.

Sam's surprise from Santa

Imagine that, Santa brought Tommy a truck.

Sam and Tommy open presents.

Finally, on his last two gifts, he got the hang of opening a present.

Christmas Morning, Mansell Style

Tommy and Papa (one of the few times the little runt would let anyone hold him)!

Christmas chaos

More Christmas Pictures

Sammie and cousin Lynsie

Quintana-Banana

Tommy and Granti-grew sharing (yeah right!)

The Best Part of Christmas - Candy!

Sammie and Nicole help Aunt Lorena make fudge.

Snow Day

Fortunately for Sammie, it snowed the first day we arrived. Tommy wasn't so happy about the 4-wheeler, but Sam-I-Am was. (The snow reminds me of why we stay in Arizona!)

Christmas in Arizona

We kind of get an extended Christmas this year. Since we were headed to Utah, some presents were shipped to wait until Christmas day, while others were opened before we left. As you can see, we caught Sammie off guard with the Wii!

Merry and Bright

While it might not have been as fancy as Temple Square in Salt Lake, we had fun at the Mesa Temple nonetheless. It was chilly (at least for us!) and Christmas music played in the background. I can say that if we were cold in Arizona at 50 degrees, we will freeze on our trip to Utah! Yikes!

Growing Vocabulary

Every day Tommy's little vocabulary seems to expand, but Dad was beaming tonight when Tommy said "airplane" for the first time. (It actually sounds more like eye-cane, but you get the idea.)

He just might speak before kindergarten!

Christmas Fun

Do you ever imagine how fun and wonderful something will be (and then you take the kids with you and that idea goes out the window?!) Such was the case last night.

With Tom back home for a few weeks, we planned all these Christmas activities we wanted to do, and had the idea our kids would be angels and have fun and cooperate (yeah right, these are my kids we're talking about, and keep in mind Tommy has mastered the art of the tantrum). As you can see, the merry-go-round was quite a hit, but we still made a memory nonetheless.

I'll always have etched in my mind our family driving in the rain and singing Rudolph (from Papa's Christmas CD) at the top of our lungs (actually I don't think Tommy was signing, but rather screaming!). At least it made for another Mansell madhouse adventure.

Fun With Santa (depending on who you ask!)

If you think I'm sitting on this old guy's lap you're crazy!

Maybe he's not so bad afterall.

I've had it! Get me off or I'll scream again!

Saturday Morning Cartoons

They may be six years apart, but some things they prefer doing together.

Close, But Not That Close!

I would say that when it comes to mother-in-laws, I lucked out. I hear friends and family alike complain about their mother-in-laws, but I think Jen and I are close and get along great together.

As Tom was out of town, she was nice enough to accompany me to the GI specialist for an appointment for Samantha. I tend to stress about a lot of things, but especially issues concerning my children.

As I was filling out paperwork, I noticed a "couple" (even had matching rings-yeah!) come out of an exam room with their little boy. One "dad" carried the diaper bag and the child, and the other "dad" followed behind. My cereal churned in my stomach at the thought of the "life partners," but I went back to paperwork and didn't think much else about it. I didn't realize Jen noticed as well.

We went back to the exam room and sat down on the row of chairs--first Jen, then myself, and poor Sam was in her lovely hospital gown on the examination table (I don't remember Tommy's exact location, but my guess is he was swinging from a light fixture at this point). Anyway, the doctor (who spoke with the accent of Apu on the Simpsons) introduced himself and was trying to figure out who was the mom, etc. Having forgotten about the "life partners" who had previously graced the room with their "speshial" presence, it took me a second to figure out what Jen was talking about when she said the following:

"I'm the grandma, and this is the mother. And she's married. To a man. I want to clarify that from the beginning!" Once I figured out what she was getting at, I nearly wet my pants laughing. Like I said, we're close, but not that close!