A Dinner Party With Old Friends

Last night we geared up for a reunion of sorts. We headed over to one of Trevor's oldest friend's house (The Smiths) to hang out with his family and other family we love, the Thomas family! These three haven't been together in at least ten years!!

The Smiths dazzled us with quite an amazing taco bar. I mean we feasted on some delicious Mexican treats!!

There were big kids for Ethan to play with so he was on cloud 9! Dax, Jaelyn and Heaven are his new best friends, and we can't thank them enough for letting our sweet 6 year old tag along with them!! The littlest of littles had a new friend, Haylee to play with and they had a blast. Jen had them playing "bus stop" with Haylee's tricycle so they would learn to share while still having fun! Haylee learned a little bit about what it would be like to have rough and tumble brothers! So much fun!!

Thank you to the Smith Family for hosting such a wonderful dinner party for us all to hang out and be together. And thank you Thomas Family for coming to Vegas, two years is way too long to not see each other!!

xo

Adventure to Santa

Aunt Tara surprised the littles with booking us a virtual experience to find Santa with Shrek and the Dreamworks gang.

We got to have our pictures taken with Shrek, Princess Fiona and Donkey!

It was a fantastic way to spend part of our day! Complete with virtually designing our very own sleighs and then an actual sleigh ride to the North Pole (it was totally like the motion theater rides at Boomtown!)

When we landed in the North Pole we waited in a little room and threw snowballs at the "bad" elves until Santa was ready for us.

The fun continued into the afternoon when we took the pipsqueaks to Johnny Rockets for french fries and milkshakes. We wrapped up our day with lots of rough housing, screaming, and Christmas wrapping.

We've been having so much fun down here in Sin City. Just counting down the days until the big man makes his appearance.

xo

Quiver Point and Bears

After a long lazy day, the pipsqueaks were beyond excited to load up in the car and head to the Galleria Mall for a spectacular surprise!

Yaya and the Papa surprised the grandbabies with Build-A-Bear! Each pipsqueak got to pick out a stuffie...they all picked a plush, sweet little bear except Bronson, he got a puppy.

The Bradshaw and Clarkson Pipsqueaks proudly present Sid; Ariel; Kenobi; Wags; and Paws...

After a short stop at the food court we were on our way to enjoy the lights of Quiver Point...

It was a magical evening filled with laughter, lights and love. I'm guessing these precious littles will be having some pretty sweet dreams.

xo

Vegas Christmas Vacation

Since returning from the North Pole 20 days ago our little elf has been mighty busy bustling around creating Christmas magic in the Bradshaw Nook. The pipsqueaks have really enjoyed counting down the days by getting little treats here and there but mostly by having our daily family time centered around Christmas themed activities.

This morning no concessions were made even though we were packing the car in preparation for a 7 day Christmas Vacation.

We loaded up the car and began our journey...

I didn't get a picture of anything in Schurz, Luning or the awesome 3 big horn sheep that were on the side of the road outside of Hawthorne.

We had an eventful trip to say the least, Daxton cried the ENTIRE 9 hours. Oh and yes you read that correctly I did say 9 HOURS because our stop in Hawthorne was almost an hour...at McDonalds!! The only thing that made that long wait interesting was that it was announced to the entire restaurant (by a complete stranger) that I was the cutest girl he had ever seen and that my husband was a lucky man!! I was embarrassed to say the least.

Anyway, we are now in Vegas and looking forward to the upcoming week.

xo

P.S. I apologize for the blury photos...I was snapping them as we were driving (sometimes at high speeds)!

Magical Hot Coco

Our Friday consisted of work; dinner with Trevor's extended family; packing for Vegas; wrapping presents for transport; and, clean up the house so my dad isn't tripping over a mess while we are in Vegas. I seriously was worried about what to do for our family time that was Christmas related. After talking Trevor's ear off about it we finally decided on something so easy but so fun...hot coco.

Our amazing little elf set everything up for me...I don't know what I'm going to do without him the next 11 months!

After being required to sit still and behave in a restaurant for almost two hours we just couldn't contain them any longer and they were beyond thrilled with their warm treat before bed. And that tricky little elf made marshmallows for the pipsqueaks that looked just like him!!

While the coco was greatly enjoyed the anticipation for our trip and ultimately Christmas got the littles into their beds without protest. It seems like just yesterday we were waking up on January 1, 2014 and here we are less than a week away from Christmas. The whole time flies when you're having fun is so true!!

xo

Party Party Party

Today we woke up to Olaf donning Mickey ears both Christmas themed and regular. The pipsqueaks were so excited to discover Olaf had dusted off "Mickey Saves Santa" that there was no waiting for family time to watch it!

Ethan was SO excited for today because not only was today the last day of school for 2014, but it was also his Christmas Party at school.

When I arrived a few other moms were helping get all the kiddos holiday projects put into their treat bags and the centers all ready for the start of the fete. We partied down to Christmas music while the kids worked their way through 5 different centers. One of the centers was a total crack-up...Christmas Dance Party on the smartboard. School these days is way different than they way I remember it. Nonetheless the kids had a blast and I enjoyed being a part of it.

And if we didn't have enough fun today our family time tonight was an early Christmas with Grandpa Fred!! Thursdays are our dinners with my dad and since we are heading to Las Vegas for our holiday this year it only made sense we do presents tonight!

Ethan got his Power Rangers Megaforce Key that he's been lusting after for the past few months, while Carter made out with Star Wars battle set and light saber.

My dad seemed to like his new hunting threads, while Trevor and I certainly appreciate the generous gift he gave us!

Even though there was a lot of excitement going on today, it was the perfect way to spend our Thursday! Happy holidays!!

xo