christmas in arizona part dos.

on to christmas eve and christmas!

a friend tipped me off that bahama bucks had a groupon going on a few months ago,

so we picked up a party pack for half price and brought it home.

it was beyond awesome, we got to share the bahama bucks wonderfulness with the whole family for christmas.

flavors chosen were cotton candy (the favorite), blue raspberry, and a new found favorite, kiwi.

we of course had to get the cream to go along.

and now, as we're here in wyoming, casey has some left over syrup and has been making snow cones with the WY snow! ha

we've had an annual silly string fight with our neighbors for over 10 years now!

it actually only happens every other year now due to us being at our in-laws

but every year we've gone to their house and surprised them.

this year, they tricked/surprised us and came to our turf for the first time and on christmas eve!

ha, what an awesome silly string fight we had this year!!!

we now understand the feeling of being in your house, and suddenly being vulnerable and under attack without our silly string being ready!

ha!

when we were younger, our neighbors, the walkers, would light off flares so santa knew where we were!

we revived the tradition this year and lit our own flares christmas eve so santa knew where we were!

it was so special to us all!

we exchanged sibling gifts that night as well (some were loveingly and cutely handmade!).

my sweet mother also set up our very favorite holiday game, again, for us.

we call it, the credit card game!

she buys 2 gift cards to restaurants, wraps them in a billion layers of wrapping paper, tape, and duct tape,

we then roll dice and hope to get doubles.

if you do get doubles, you put on the gardening gloves and try ripping that baby open!

but as soon as someone else rolls a double, your turn is up, no matter how long you've had the chance to open it and the other person rips those gloves away from you!

such a hoot every year. 

it's actually just super savage and that's why we love it so much :)

christmas day was wonderful.

we had german pancakes,

opened presents, 

napped,

went to church,

and celebrated the birth of our lord and savior, jesus christ.

that night we talked about a bunch of the background research done about the savior's birth,

information we all may have not known which was so special.

i love christmas because it is that one time of year the world gathers to reflect on the savior and then our families.

if you'd like to learn more of Jesus Christ, you can visit mormon.org for all the questions you have and info you hope for

or you can ask me and we can chat :)

merry christmas everyone!

christmas in arizona part uno

like i said, christmas in arizona was a blast.

all 5 siblings gathered for almost a week together.

the 4 little kiddies added to fun 100 times over.

i'm so glad they're around now!

and next year, there will be 3 new ones added, wahoo!

we got to spend a lot of time playing outside:

parks, running, bike rides, backyard fun, etc.

it was just so lovely to be able to play outside and not have your face freezing!

driving around with the windows down reminded me how much i love summer.

summer is my favorite.

but back to christmas :)

like mentioned a few posts ago, TIA ROSA'S 

oh how i love those salmon tacos.

oh and i've decided watching phoebe eat spaghetti may be one of my all time favorite aunt moments of all time.

eating is her verb, it's what she does.

other days leading up to christmas we took family pictures and went and saw the movie mission impossible 4,

loved it, such a great movie!
my other wish was to watch as many christmas movies the week before christmas as possible.
because of the business of finals and such, we hadn't watched a single one all of decemeber!
we were able to watch the nativity story, home alone, and polar express.
we didn't hit all the ones i wanted to, but 3 were better than none!
next year we won't miss out on ELF!

christmas card 2011

merry late christmas,

from us.

we ordered 2 designs from cardstore.com and had such a wonderful experience with them!
everything was included in this killer deal and we absolutely love them.
carson took this picture for us in our bacyardish area in minutes for us.
she is blossoming into such a great photographer.
we're excited to show you the rest!

christmas treated us wonderful this year!
we have left the beautiful 60/70 degree weather of arizona and are now having a ball in wyoming.

a christmas break update, from the phone.

here's arizona thus far from my telefono:

looking around at a way too expensive antique store.
IN-N-OUT. 'nuf said.

playing with phoebe outside.
casey leading annalee as she plays the piano.
shopping for food before the crowd comes into town.
casey entertaining about a million kids at the park with what time is it mr. fox

a double rainbow outside the house, prettyyyyyyy.
more goodwill shopping
(converstaions to go goodwill shopping always go as follows:
mom: kimber, wanna go to the goodwill with me?
me: no, i'll find something i want.
after cunning words, i always end up going...and finding things i can't resist...)
going on a bike ride/run. this trip ended with annalee falling on the stairs at the park which ended in an ER visit...not so fun. a little glue on the chin apparently goes a long way

annalee took the first 2 pics, just hanging.
and more playing with kiddlings.

TIA ROSAS!
i forgot how much i love this place!
salmon tacos are officially my favorite thing in the whole entire world.
like i've said before, tia rosas is an absolute must do thing in mesa

 

we have 2 parents, 5 siblings, 5 spouses (update* 4 spouses, 1 fiance:), and 4 cute grandkids.
i'm a lovin this christmas break.

ghost of christmas past.

story time.

picture from april 2011

a little background

we started dating my freshman year.

the only rule my parents gave me when i went to college was don't date return missionaries.

return missionaries are only looking for marriage and my parents weren't wanting me to get married anytime soon...

so we "dated" 2 months (i didn't consider it dating though casey did).

then we were off 2 months.

we were on 2 months.

then he propsed.

then we were engaged for 8 months.

and now we've been married for 2 years!

so during those 2 months of "offness",

we kept in contact.

a little mingling here and there, ya know, couldn't cut ties all together.

well, once finals were over i was driving with a friend to the airport to go home for christmas.

in a snow storm.

and as arizona girls, we're not that hip on driving in the snow.

as fate would have it, we hit some old big block of ice/snow and got a flat tire.

once we pulled off the freeway and checked the tire,

we began calling people who could help.

she called her boyfriend, no answer.

i called both my brothers, no answer.

she called her cousins, no answer.

so i did all i could think was left.

i called the boy who i told i didn't want to date anymore: casey.

he answered,

after 2 rings.

and was there to save us,

within 15 minutes.

he saw the condition of the tire,

knew we were in a rush to get to the ariport,

during a snowstorm,

so insisted that he drive us to the airport.

this is finals week, mind you.

who does that?

seriously?

come to the aid of a a girl who decided she just wasn't that into you at the moment?

ha, oh goodness, i know i was just pulling him in closer,

but he was so nice!!!

my family couldn't believe i asked him to do such a thing,

such a tease!

and poor casey, as he later tells it: you were just egging me on more and more, i was so confused!

that's our pre-marriage christmas story that will be in the vaults forever.

thanks for reading :)

some last tidbits about utah/end of the semester before we get into all the "holidays/family" posts that will inevitably come...

done with school.

yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
utah teased us with alight dusting of snow last week (which was beautiful and completely welcomed)
i wore sweat pants everyday and may or may not have worn the exact same outfit two days in a row...
and then of course, the glorious tesing center/jsb lines

cody and camille came all the way down to provo from indiana just to see us!

well...kinda. there may have been some other people involved in the whole familytoseeinthewest ordeal...

our excitement to see jaden was like a kid on christmas morning.

WE COULD NOT WAIT TO SEE THAT KID.

he's gotten so big since 4 months ago when we last saw him!

he was obsessed with casey and wanted nothing to do with me.

i'm used to it, kids are obsessed with casey...as am i.

we went over to the grandparents for dinner, chatting, and GAMES.

games up the wazoo.

even the grandparents stayed up til 1 am with us playing games, ha!

oh, and when we left their house that night, 19 degrees!!!

blah! we couldn't have been more excited to be in AZ the following day!

mom sent up about a bajillion lemons with my brother to me.

i kid you not, a full bajillion.

i finally made time to do something with all them lemons.

lemonade.

my wonderful friend had a juicer so i juiced away!

the perfect lemonade is equal parts sugar and lemon juice, and twice as much water.

try it,

it rocks.

more cute pictures of abby girl while she was playing with us at our house.

she pretended to not be interested in reading books but as soon as you'd flip the page, she'd stop in her tracks and strain her neck to see what was next! 

so funny...

and lastly, we drove down to arizona!

yipee!

the drive was extra pretty this time around,

sunny skies with snow all around.

pretttttttyyyyyyyyyy.

we listened to the BYU v Baylor game (so close!!!!!!) and the 2nd book in the hunger games series.

and made it in 9 hours with exactly one stop.

woah, i know.

we are so ready to be done with finals.

this semester has been a little brutal in terms of finals for us.

we're surviving.

casey is in a final as i'm writing this.

we both have one hard one left, waiting for us in that terrible testing center.

mmeh.

we're working a ton this week but are lucky enough to get to study while we work.

but with work comes not so fun working times til 2 am.

(i signed up for these stupid times for some reason...)

we didn't work last night and i didn't have stuff this morning so you know what happened?

i fell asleep on the couch at about 9 pm and awoke at 9 am...and kept sleeping til 11.

oh my gosh, i'm lazy, i know! i've never slept so long.

it was exactly what was needed though.

i've had 3 days in a row of 7 am/8 am finals and in between all those went to bed anywhere between 12:30 and 3.

i've never been so happy that next semester is my last!

but onto little fun things that have been going on lately.
1) finsihed our bowling class with the best bowling day ever of 4 high scores in a row!
never done that before!
2) christmas pancakes last saturday. we put egg nog in place of the milk/buttermilk...sadly you couldn't taste a difference...
3) we made sugar cookes on the reading days.
4) abby girl came over and played with us this week :) she is so HILARIOUS!

 

it we got to play with abby the night before she turned a WOPPING 2 years old!
love that girl!
she gives the cutest kisses in the world!
so happy late birthday abby girl!

oh, christmas tree

yay for christmas trees!

i love turning the lights on that baby and watching it glow.

we try to leave them on as much as possible (especially at night),

so you can see it shining in our window from the street.

itt is a glorious sight if i do say so myself :)

this plastic baby was a wedding present actually, fun gift, huh?

i'll admit, fake does have some benefits...

 but i grew up with a real tree and we hope to buy real trees after BYU.

for now, this is our tree and we love it.

when it comes to decorations we abide by these rules:

more is more.

old, new, glittery, dull, we like them all!

pretty much our theme is whatever is on hand is gonna go on that there darn tree.

and you know what else i love about putting up decorations?
there's tons of new ones i forgot i bought at the end of last season!
so it's like a pre-christmas present to myself each year!!!

i now present, our tree.

song: pennies from heaven from the movie Elf

here's our tree from 2010, and 2009.
after looking at last year's tree, it looks almost like a duplicate, event though we did add a bunch.
we'll need to spice it up next year!

meh

if you've spent anytime around me at or texted me back and forth and disagreed,

you'd know that this ornament SCREAMS kimber.

usually i say/write it with 2 m's but this works :)

via cup of jo

christmas lovin' and yard workin'

did i tell you our chirstmas decorations are up?

instead of writing a 3 page, single spaced paper, we hung up our christmas decorations the night we got back from thanksgiving,

(all of aunt malinda's decorations in montana got me oober excited)

more to come on our decorating the tree :)

we've also been cutting out lots of snowfalkes for fun.

like, legit ones.

some patterns are from the internet, some were created with our very own T.L.C.

we've also consumed approximately 2028910832037 gallons of hot chocolate this season and not sick of it one bit.

the landscape management club had a little service project last weekend:

raking up leaves and pruning bushes/trees for the (old people) community in provo.

it was freezing, but we sure had fun together.

the best part was getting to knock on their doors and tell them we were going to clean up their yard for them, FOR FREE!

it was the best activity we've had all  year long, we were all together, happy, and serving others in need.

 

in other news,
it's the last week of school,
2 fist pumps for us!
and then we have one week of finals and we will be arizona bound!

provo utah bucket list: slc temple lights (with cousin dinner)

sunday, we also crossed another item off the list!

the salt lake temple square lights!

we actually had a cousin dinner in SLC that night so it turned out perfectly!

firstly, this cousin dinner:

SO FUN.

oh goodness, i love being with family,

it is always such a blast!

everyone in the utah valley was able to come accept for 1 family (they were sick),

plus the dinner just happened to be planned on a weekend our cousin and her family from tennessee was in town!

all together, i believe there were 18 adults, 17 children, and 1 baby on the way!

it was so fun being together and watching all the cute little ones just running around and playing.

i love family.

my cousin, suzie, also instigated a few games for us all to play which was a hoot, as always.

catch phrase and werewolves.

it was perfect for our size of group and with all the kids in the middle playing and making their own noise.

after the get together,

casey and i headed over to the temple to see the lights.

we were a little worried it'd be terribly busy due to it being a sunday night and after the christmas devotional,

but to our surprise, it was nearly empty!

seriously, there was nearly no one there,

it was perfect and beautiful, (and super cold)

the only other time i've been to the lights was my freshman year with our ward where we were hurried and it was terribly busy,

so this was a much better experience!

 

if you've never gone, you should :)

provo utah bucket list: sammy's burgers and BYU planetarium

yet again, we have crossed off TWO more bucket list items!

we had quite the eventful night last saturday!

1st on the list: sammy's burgers.

it's a small burger shop in provo at about center and 100 west near the marriot hotel.

we've driven by it plenty of times and said to ourselves: "we need to go there!"

they're have also been plenty of people rave how incredible the pieshakes and burgers are.

off we went and brought scott, megan and tristan in tow.

let me tell ya, that place is as yummy as it is cracked up to be:

huge, delicious burgers,

the yummiest fried ever,

and such an awesome vibe.

we had to skip out on the shakes because we were so full from the burgers and fries,
so we will undoubtedly be back again soon for more.

i can't remember what casey got,
but i ate the aussie burger: fried pineapple, grilled egg, with all the other normal stuff.
loved it.
another tip: get the battered fries: ooooober yummy.

apparently casey and i both got a little picture crazy at this place,
it just had so much fun character for such a small place!




after dinner we drove like speed demons up to campus and literally RAN to the eyring science center for the planetarium show!
we had heard the first night in december was the special "star of bethlehem show" and were excited.
our excitedness quickly disappeared as we began to fall asleep during a LECTURE!
yes, that's all it was, a lecture!!!
i'll admit, it wa kinda cool listening to the professor reason through what could have possibly caused the bright star in the sky...
after the show, we learned that this indeed was a "special" show, it was the only lecture show,
jeeze.
we'll be going back again next semester for a legit, cool star show indeed with all the affects and stuff


after the show ended we walked over to the JSB and began waiting in line for divine comedy, 
yes, we love divine comedy. 
they never disappoint and are SO CLEVER!
at the end of each show, our mouth always hurts from laughing smiling so much!
here's their new music video this semester "good" instead of "bad" by MJ :)
we were lucky to have met up with 2 other couples there too.

and there was our friday night!

provo utah bucket list: provo bakery

we passed off antoher bucket list item!

going on over to the infamous provo bakery,

we've heard people rave over it, but we've never actually gone, gasp!

as i turned the corner to see our front door, i saw casey in the process of bringing my new bike into the house!

woot woot! we actually got a bike and another big something while in montana (no taxes, yeahya!) and luckily casey's grandparent's were in montana with us and would be driving back down to utah with their mini van, yay :)

as i walked up, joy spread through my whole body and now i knew what little kids felt like at christmas!

i threw by backpack and coat in the door and started riding that baby around!!!

casey hopped on his and we just decided to ride down the street.

the closer we got to center i thought, "hey let's go to the provo bakery, we're right here!"

so, we found it and just stopped!

we got ourselves a HUGE, christmasey, sprinkle one to split,

and enjoyed it in the cold outside sitting at the bus stop (the bus stopped for us, ha).

we will most definietly be going there again soon!

that doughnut was so perfect :)

*update*

i think i'm going to get rid of this cute bike that i'm in love with :(

i just think i'd really like one that changes speeds...

we'll see what happens!

thanksgiving recap.

we had the most wonderful thanksgiving in montana with some of casey's family,

it was seriously so much fun!

the food was completely wonderful,

we had 4 cooks in the kitchen, which was so nice,

and we all ate til we had stomach aches, it was a love-hate relationship.

but the leftovers were so wonderful for the next 3 days.

oh yummmmmm.

catherine, got cute leaves all ready and we all wrote what we were thankful for on them, hung them on the fire place, then our wonderful reader, kyle, read them aloud to us all and we guessed who it was.

so cute and so fun!

one night we went to a little skating place and had a ball with each other!

even grandpa, nearly 80 years old, got out there on roller skates and skated around with us,

what a hoot!

helping the little kids around the rink made it that much more fun too!

it was such a fun thanksgiving with so many little ones around,

i'm so happy that that's what all our future family gatherings will be like,

lots of little ones all around!

they loved casey, of course and his phone

one of the days, lance, an uncle, organized for us all to go riding on some quads together!

we even brought all the kids to ride too!

because it was wonderful montana, we got to bring all the little ones on the quads with us.

even though, it was bitterly freezing near the end, it was absolutely splendid.

we were so happy we got to be in montana this year, and it was so worth the drive!
this definitely won't be the last thanksgiving we have with this family!

other random activites:
painting LOTS of nails,
cutting out snowflakes,
having the little ones catch bugs for my friends insect collection,
playing games,
watching football,
looking at ALL the themes christmas trees at malinda's house,
lots of laughter :)

can't wait til next year!