Thanksmas Weekend

This past weekend was a very exciting weekend for us. We packed our bags and headed to Mesa for Thanksmas. We celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas with Nick's family including all seven grandkids.

It was a long drive (but made much shorter by the new Hoover Dam bridge) and Brayden stayed awake for the WHOLE thing.

On Friday night we hung out in the hot tub with all the kids. Brayden enjoyed being able to splash around with the bigger boys and also playing with Ella.

Brayden took an instant liking to Ella (and her stickerbook). They played so nice in the hotel room together. The jumped on beds, ate junk food, played with stickers and colored. At one point they even climbed into a crib together to hang out. He can't wait to see her next week when him and Nick go to Minnesota. He keeps asking "where's Ella go?"

On Saturday morning, I got up early and ran a 5k with Tom and Becky (my sister - in - law). It was my first race (I have 2 more scheduled in the next 3 weeks) and it was so much fun! We ran really well and finished in 30:12. I am so glad that Becky invited me to come with her (thanks Becky!)
This is before the race when it was cold and dark still.We played outside and goofed around

On Saturday, we gathered all the kids to take a Christmas picture. It is super hard to get 7 little ones to all look in the same direction, much less smile, but they did pretty good.

Since we were celebrating Christmas, Santa knew and made an appearance (he is less busy now than he will be in a few weeks). Brayden had no fear. He walked right up to Santa and hello and then sat on his lap to get his present from Santa.

After presents, we played with all of our new toys

Ella loved Ruby and just wanted RUby to be her baby. It was super sweet.

We had such a fun Thanksmas and it was so fun to see everybody and watch all the kids play together.