Vegas Baby!!

So it's only been over a month, but I'm finally getting around to posting our pictures from our trip to Las Vegas. The week before Christmas, we left our kids with Grandma and Grandpa Gibbons, and Tyler and I fly to Vegas from Salt Lake to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. We stayed in the Bellagio Hotel which is where we stayed for part of our honeymoon ten years ago. It was as pretty as ever, however Tyler was bummed because they didn't upgrade us to a lake view room like they did the first time. Apparently your 10th anniversary isn't as big of a deal as your honeymoon, but they were also really busy the week we were there. I still love their lobby ceiling - filled with blown glass flowers. Sorry for the up-the-nose shot, but I wanted us in the picture too.

The Bellagio had a huge Christmas setup right off their lobby that we walked past every day. Here are some pictures from that. I liked the jumping fountains around the huge ornament balls.

Tyler liked the penguin display. They used thousands of flowers for all the displays. It was amazing.

There was a huge tree in the center with a train that went around the base. We found a nice couple to take a picture of us so we could have one with both of us in it.

The Bellagio houses the world's largest chocolate fountain. It was right outside a little cafe where we ate multiple times. They had some yummy pastries and the biggest crepes you've ever seen. I told Tyler to pretend he was "tasting" the chocolate from the fountain.

In the New York New York Hotel I had to stop and take a picture of the Statue of Liberty made out of jelly beans. This was Abby's favorite picture from our trip that she told everyone about when talking about our trip.

We spent the majority of our time shopping. We bought too much stuff for the girls, but they loved it all. Most of it came from the M&M's store.

And I even talked Tyler into getting us one of those laser-imaged glass cubes that has your picture in it. That was our keepsake for us. I think it's awesome. Every hotel had beautiful Christmas decorations. I couldn't help taking lots of pictures at many different spots. I really liked this one which was right around the corner from a huge waterfall.

The big show that we saw was the Blue Man Group. They were awesome! It was more entertainment than percussion which was different than I was expecting, but it was still really really good.

After that concert, we ate at a fancy restaurant right around the corner in the hotel. It was one of those super fancy ones, and we felt kind of out of place. I decided we're not meant for that kind of upper-class dining. The food was good, but for the price, we would have been just as happy eating at a regular restaurant. But it was fun to say we did it (plus I had a restaurant.com coupon so we didn't pay full price). And the waiter was still more than willing to take a picture of us for our keepsakes.

We also went to a Price is Right Live show where it's just like the real show with contestants from the audience and big prizes and everything. It was fun, but we didn't win anything. :( I decided it's one of those things that you'd have to go to multiple days in a row to increase your chances of getting on the stage and winning something. It was still a lot of fun.

We had a great time in Las Vegas, although we were ready to get home to our girls and our family for the rest of the Christmas vacation. But it was definitely a nice, relaxing get away. And to spend it with my sweetheart of 10+ years - what a treat!

Christmas in Utah

We took our usual holiday trip out to Utah this winter - this year it was for Christmas. I was hoping to give my kids medicine for carsickness, but after not getting the okay from their doctor, we ended up just making sure we had our trusty throw-up buckets available. We have had carsickness issues every single drive to and from Utah for that past 4 or so times we've driven, so that was my biggest stress preparing for this trip. Luckily, we made the entire drive to Utah without incident, so I was relieved (the trip back however was a different story).

So we spent the first night and day at Tyler's sister house where we celebrated Abby's birthday along with her cousin's birthday. Sunday, December 19th, was Abby's 6th birthday and she started out the morning by receiving a special phone call from Belle herself of Beauty and the Beast. Belle knew Abby was turning 6, talked about their mutual affection for chocolate cake, and also had the entire castle sing happy birthday to her. As Abby listened, her eyes got wider and wider, and as soon as she got off the phone, she goes, "I'm like freakin' out!" And then she proceeded to tell everyone that Belle had called her. She was so excited. It was adorable. I wish I would have recorded it!

All the cousins loved to sing and dance together. They spent a lot of the time doing this when we were together.The two birthday girls.Here is the cake that my sister-in-law made. I thought they turned out so adorable. She split a cake in two and decorated them both the same so each girl could have her own.We all separated after that day for the next week leading up to Christmas. Tyler's parents took our girls back to Vernal with them while Tyler and I took our anniversary trip to Las Vegas (post and pics to come later), and we all reconvened in Vernal the day before Christmas Eve. We did our usual Christmas Eve festivities which included a talent show. Here are most of the grandgirls (in their matching pjs) singing for the talent show. With 2 grandparents, 8 children and spouses, and 12 grandchildren, there's bound to be a haul from Santa. Here's one half of the room Christmas morning around the tree. And here are the girls opening their gifts from Santa Christmas morning. Abby got her Buttercup Bike that she asked for. Tessa got the Princess Scooter she had requested.And Aubrey loved the fact that her present came with a baby that she wanted out immediately.
After spending time with family, administering medicine for sick kids (Aubrey had some ear drainage that took her to an urgent care place the day we returned from Las Vegas), taking family pictures, visiting with friends, and seeing the newest grandbaby blessing, we made our way home. We love being with family and always feel like it goes by way too fast, but one thing's for sure: with all we brought home, we must have been good last year! We are definitely blessed with such a wonderful family!

Catch Up to End of 2010

I can't believe my last post was Halloween! Here's a few pictures and stories to catch us up to the end of the year, or at least close to it. We have done so much in the past 6 weeks!

First, I had to include our annual Turkey pumpkins.

This year I was so proud of myself because I used "fancy" paper (scrapbook paper instead of my usual plain colored paper).

We also did a few photo shoots in December with different Christmas dresses.

In this photo shoot, I used a prop...

Clever huh? :)

The girls liked the snowman and taking pictures centered around it.

Apparently Aubrey was done with pictures, because this was the shot I took right after she decapitated the snowman.

One day Aubrey had been upstairs by herself for a little too long, so I went to check on her expecting to find her getting into something she shouldn't and that's why it had been so quiet, but this is what I found. (It was so weird to me because it was like 10:30 in the morning, not even close to her regular nap time!)

We had a playgroup at the Villages in Allen where they have a tiny town sized for kids. They loved running from building to building.

I still love Aubrey's "cheese."

Different picture, but exact same face for Aubrey. So funny!

We also had a playgroup at the Dallas Arboretum. You could tell where there should have been lots of flowers (had it been springtime), but we did find a few picture spots near some pretty flowers.

There were still plenty to see even in the winter. Like this sweet frog water fountain.

One of our favorite spots was overlooking the lake. The kids loved sitting on the deer statues they had there.

This was one of my favorite pictures, but it keeps uploading sideways. Oh well, you get the idea.

Tessa found these stones that looked like drums to her. She decided to "play" them with her feet.

So that was all our November and December activities that I had pictures of up to the point where we left for our Christmas holiday. I'm going to have to do separate posts for our trip to Utah and our anniversary trip to Vegas! So many good times and lots of awesome pics. Stay tuned...