Our Christmas Card

We've been married now 5 and a half years and finally decided to send out Christmas cards this year for the first time!  It was so much fun for me to send them out!  Those who've sent us their Christmas cards got priority and then family, of course, so I'm sorry if we missed any of you!  I thought I'd post a picture for any of you that we did miss.

Sorry it's bad quality.  I just took a picture of our card.  It looks much better in person :/

We had our pictures taken at the beginning of November by photographer Monica Johnson, and that day Aiden wasn't cooperating AT. ALL.  We were so frustrated.  In fact, half an hour in, Monica even decided we should just reschedule because she was worried that we wouldn't like any of them and that we probably wouldn't want to use any of them for Christmas cards.  I was so bummed!!  She was so kind and said she'd send us what she got, but that she was pretty sure Aiden wasn't smiling in any of them (the formal ones with all of us looking at the camera).  A few weeks later she sent us a handful of photos she did get and I was so psyched!  I was totally pleased with them!!  I didn't even care that Aiden wasn't really smiling in our family picture!  At least we have the one with Daddy smooching him :)  So thank you to Monica!!  We'll definitely use her again!

I got a LivingSocial deal from PhotoAffections to have our cards printed up.  It was so fun to get it all laid out just how we wanted.  I was definitely happy with how our first Christmas card turned out :)  Hopefully we can keep it up every year in the years to come!!

P.S. I didn't know yet that we were having a GIRL(!) when we had the cards printed.  That's why it just says "Baby Knuckles" :)

Christmas Festivities

We have had such a nice Christmas week :)

Monday, the 23rd, we went to see a production of White Christmas at the Phoenix Theatre with my family.  We were laughing because we ended up in the first and second rows and were close enough to see spit fly and sweat drip..haha.  It was a very nice production though and was a fun way to kick-off our Christmas week. 

Bad quality - Jen's iPhone.

We spent Christmas Eve with Tanis and Kent.  Tanis made us gourmet pizza (might as well have been!) for dinner!  She did a supreme, an artichoke pesto one (so yummy!), and a garlic cheese bread.

Then we opened gifts.  You'll notice the pictures always revolve around Aiden :)  I don't even think to take pictures of anyone else anymore :/

Grandma and Grandpa got Aiden an airplane...

...and a matching helicopter!

Also a Planes book and Lego car set.

Family picture.  

Aiden didn't want anything to do with this picture, that's why he's way out in front, but once the camera started flashing (and took like 10 photos - to our surprise!) it got his attention, and we got a smile :)

'Twas the night before Christmas...back at our house :)

We always have our little Christmas before we head out to see the families.  Here's Aiden checking out his stocking.  I just wanted to have his cute little voice recorded.  You can tell I'm stuffy.  Getting over a cold.

On Saturday morning (before Christmas) Aiden totally shocked us when he came to us holding this little school bus and saying "I found the school bus"..haha. I had already put it in his stocking because I never thought he'd find it, but his stocking must've fallen down. Neither of us saw it happen, so it was pretty funny, and he seemed so proud of himself for finding it!  And then he played with it all day. I had to wait until he went to bed that night to hide it so I could put it back in his stocking on Christmas Eve ;)

After we opened our gifts from one another, we headed over to my family's.

We got Aiden some slippers for Christmas that pretty much match our L.L. Bean ones.  So cute!!

And here are just a bunch of pictures of Aiden rotating between everyone, opening his gifts.  He always gets the most of our little family ;)  Baby girl also got a whole little wardrobe ;)

Cheesing it with the aunts!

Aunts Jill, (Aiden), Amy, Jen, and Amber.

This whole season, Aiden has LOVED this Mickey and Minnie blow-up down the street from my parents'.  Every time we'd pass it he'd say "hi" and "bye".  We walked down to it with Aiden after gifts.  You can hear him right at the beginning saying "hi" :)

Mom, Amy, and Jill made us a nice little breakfast - well it was brunch by then - and then we headed home for naps.

We went back over that evening to hang out and figured we should get a family photo since we hadn't gotten one earlier.

Hope you all had a very merry Christmas!!

Aquarium and Flying Home...or Not

Sunday, December 1st

Sunday was our final day in Hawaii, but we had to check out of our hotel by noon (we were flying out in the evening), so we had to plan our day accordingly.  We took our time having breakfast and getting packed and out of the hotel.  We stopped for lunch and then figured the aquarium would be a good place to "waste" a few hours. It was not "wasting" by any means, I just didn't know how else to word it ;)

Maui Ocean Center Aquarium.

Love that you can see Aiden checking out the fish :)

I totally want this little spotted fish :)

Yucky moray eel.

Sea horses.

Aiden discovered that he could light things up when he pushed these buttons.  It was very hard to pry him away.

Do you see the two fish in this one??

Here's a close up of the coral one.

Flounder - their eyes are so weird!

Sand eels.

Octupus.

Another moray eel.

Loved this neon fish :)

Touch pool.

Baby hammerhead.

We were pretty impressed with the aquarium!  Aiden broke a turtle trinket in the gift shop that we had to pay for.  Thank goodness it was only like 8 bucks.

By the time we got out, it was starting to get dark, but we still had a few hours before we needed to make our way to the airport, so we went a little further down the Road to Hana and stopped at a lookout to watch some surfers.

There were some paddle boarders as well.  Trent and Kent were kind of regretting that they never rented paddle boards to try out.

Aiden was content to just play with the steering wheel ;)

We got to the airport a few hours early and had some dinner.  We were planning to take a redeye (I was kind of dreading it, but we were hoping that Aiden would sleep the whole time) around 10:30. We got on the plane, waited like 45 minutes, they let us get off, we waited another 45 minutes in the airport, only to hear they were canceling the flight for mechanical issues.  DEJA VU ANYONE?!  We had issues flying here!!!  And then they couldn't even fly us out until Tuesday afternoon!!  It was Sunday night!  We were so incredibly irritated with U.S. Airways.  Thankfully they gave us vouchers for a hotel and for meals (had to stand in a long line for those) and we finally made it to our new hotel around 2 in the morning, and that was only because Tanis and Kent were kind enough to let us go ahead without our suitcases.  Somehow they maneuvered all 7 suitcases and made it there at like 3 :/  Poor Aiden was all out of sorts :(  All he wanted was to be home in his own bed.

Everyone was giving us a hard time saying, "Oh man, you got stuck in Hawaii, how terrible", but really, we were all packed ready to go!! And it's especially hard when you have a toddler to worry about.

Anyway, we slept in until like 11 on Monday.  Tanis was so amazing and spent much of the morning trying to get everything situated to fly out on Tuesday.  Then we just took it easy and hung out by the pool.  The beach was closed due to a SHARK ATTACK that morning!! Crazy! We found out later that the man died :(  So scary.  This is why snorkeling makes me so nervous!

Makena Beach Resort.

Tuesday we had an awesome breakfast and got checked out of the hotel and made our final trek to the airport.

Aiden and Daddy got to feed the koi fish before we headed out.

Aiden got very good at rolling his own suitcase.  In fact, he would insist!

We had a quick layover in L.A. and made it into Phoenix at 1 in the morning.  Thank you to my dad for picking us up, only to turn around and bring my mom back to the airport a few hours later to head to Germany!!

Big thank you to Tanis and Kent for inviting us to experience our first trip to Hawaii and for your generosity!!  Trent and I definitely plan to go back - maybe just the 2 of us (in other words, without kiddos) - and when I'm not pregnant ;)