The Ray's

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Hayden is a CTR now

I can't believe Hayden isn't a Sunbeam anymore, he was just in Nursery screaming for his mommy. He was excited to come home from church with his new CTR ring.

He also got a name tag that said he was in CTR's, I took it off his shirt and stuck it on his face. He thought it was funny.

Winnie the Pooh Christmas Tail

This post is a little late but after we went to this we had a bunch going on and then went to Disneyland. But I thought since the kids loved this I would post it. Early in December we went to A Winnie the Pooh Christmas Tail done by Valley Youth Theater in Phoenix. Aaron got tickets from a friend and Aaron does accounting work for the live theaters in the Valley. I am not a big Winnie the Pooh fan and either are our kids but they loved the show and it put us in the Christmas mood. This was a fun Christmas activity to do with the kids. It was lots of fun to watch and the snow at the end was very cool. The children who act in this play are very talented. After the show they talked with the kids. Some kids were asking for autographs so Hayden did it too.

Christopher Robin

Hayden and Tigger

Hayden and Pooh

The girl who played Piglet was so cute.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Ice Skating

My family got together the other night to go ice skating at Polar Ice in Gilbert. I wasn't sure if Hayden would like it and I wasn't sure if I could do it since I have had 2 ankle surgeries and I know ice skating is hard on your ankles. I haven't tried ice skating since I was maybe 15 years old. But we went anyway and Hayden used his cousins ice skates since she didn't want to do it anymore. Hayden would have different family members of mine take him out and by the end of the night he was doing a lot better. He really liked it so I think we will go again and this time I may just try it to see if my ankles can handle it or not. Now that I know he likes it for sure I am willing to try too. And I was so mad I forgot my camera so I had to use my cell phone and the pictures didn't turn out too good.

My brother Ryan helping Hayden

A video clip of them I took on my cell

Snow Day

Hayden and Emmie have never been in real snow. Each year I hear of families going to take their kids to play in the snow and its always tax season and Aaron can't go. So when I heard people were going again this year it reminded me we needed to hurry and do it before tax season officially got crazy. So we drove to Payson and had a nice lunch. Sara and her kids drove up to meet us so we took our time eating knowing they were behind us a bit on our little trip. We met in Payson and then drove toward the rim. About 20 minutes out of Payson we found some good snow but waited to find a road we could drive off the highway. We found a paved road and drove a mile or so off the Highway and found a nice open area to play in.

Hayden couldn't wait to make a real snow ball!

Emmie was just loving it, she was grabbing snow and throwing it. I thought she would dislike how cold and wet the snow was but she didn't care and played along with the other kids.

Sara had to hold Jace, he would cry if he sat in the snow. I think he could feel the cold snow through his pants.

Emmie looked so cute in her warm pink coat

Emmie grabbing snow to throw at people

Hayden trying to do a snow angel

Aaron and the kids making a small snow man. We didn't have any tools and our hand were very cold so they made a small one. It turned out cute.

Me smashing snow on Hayden's head during our family picture.

Sara and Karlee making snow castles. Aaron found the lightsaver in the forest, not sure why it was there but it made a nice addition to the snow castles.

Karlee loves to eat snow.

A couple of shots of us before we leave and a kiss for the road to keep is warm...ha ha!

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Bringing in the new year 2009

A couple people suggested in my family maybe we have a party this year outside. I thought it was a good idea since my house wasn't back to normal since Christmas eve and we have a nice street to hang out on. The only reason to drive down our street is if you live on it and all our neighbors knew we were going to be having a party outside. They were even told to join in. So most of our neighbors came out too and hung out with their family and friends in their drive way and the kids played up and down the street. We ate lots of good food, sat around the fire and hung out with family and neighbors. It was a nice and wasn't too cold.

Some of the girls dancing

Playing on the street

Right before midnight, Aaron being cheesy for the camera

New Years kiss....our puppy Libby didn't want to look !

Right before midnight, everyone got so loud and crazy. I think we were so tired! Cinda pored us all Sparkling cider. I bought my own Welches Sparkling white grape to drink out of the bottle. I love it! We had noise makers (even though our mouths were loud enough) and poppers and fireworks. Others on the street were shooting off fireworks. It was crazy. One blew up right over our heads and the sparks went all over us as we ran into the garage screaming. It was a fun night!

Everyone kept asking "What time is it?" We didn't want to miss midnight.