Sheffield Family Christmas Party

For years my dad's family in Arizona has an annual Sheffield Family Christmas Party a week or so before the holiday. We all look forward to catching up with each other, seeing how much our kids have grown, eating yummy homemade soups, salads, and treats. And of course there is the annual "white elephant" gift exchange.

This year we shook things up a bit and switched it to Cousin Laura and Katie's houses which are next door to each other. It was the perfect location and situation with all of our little ones. Laura has four little boys so all the grandbabies LOVED running around their kid-friendly yard playing with all the toys. Then when it was dinner time we wandered back to Katie's house to eat and socialize. I think every single person in the family came for at least part of the time and I know I enjoyed seeing each and every one of them!Above: Mommy (me) and little E

Below: playing outside at Laura's house on their fake grass
Jesse, Kaylin and Grandma S relaxing on the porch swing
Aunt Lori and Zack

Adam, cousin Katie and T

N with her boyfriend T; I was so glad to see Nats again. I think the last time I saw her was last year at our family party and so it was fun to play catch up for a few minutes in between chasing the crazy kids around. N was so sweet to come to the party ON HER BIRTHDAY!Holly with her little girl, Brooklyn

Adam and Clay (both married my cousins)

Cousin Kevin with Uncle Evan

Some of the Watkins fam: Ashley, Lisa and Danny

When we were outside playing...all Robby wanted to do was to try to fish this shark out of the small pond and to put one of the toy boats in the water. It cracks me up to see how smart and logical his little mind works. I am sure he thought we were all silly for not wanting him to put the boat in the obvious place it belongs...the water :)

(Grandma and Rob-sters)

Miss M found herself another boy buddy at our party. My cousin Laura's second son, , is five years old and became the perfect playmate for Maddie. They spent time rolling together in the grass outside and then she LOVED wrestling indoors with 3 of Laura's boys. I have to admit that she cracks me up with her semi-tomboy self. Maddie has one side of her that is so prissy and girly which includes loving make-up, doing hair, clothing, dresses, jewelry; but then she also has another side of her where she is completely at ease rolling in the mud, wrestling, playing trains, kicking balls around...she is definitely one tough cookie!

Aunt Gail with cousin Laura's baby boy, and Aunt Nancy

Ryan, Ben, Uncle Mike and Scott

Eli sort of has Uncle Ben wrapped around his little finger and he always reserves some of his best giggles for when his Uncle is around. I have to admit that Ben is a great babysitter to my kids and is typically willing to pitch in a hand and help us out when we run into binds with babysitting.

I pretty much love this sweet picture of my dad and little E. My dads looks says it all...he sure loves the grandbabies. Just like he always says, being a grandpa is "awesome." Luv ya daddy!

Every year we do the annual family gift exchange. The past few years we have instituted the "dollar store rule" where all gifts need to be around one dollar in cost. It is fun to see what everyone comes up with for the exchange...I think this year the top picks were "Muscle Lotion," small screwdriver set, and my dad even lucked out with the set of Ensure...yummy! For the little kids we also bring an inexpensive gift for each of them to open and enjoy during the adult gift exchange.

Maddie sure enjoyed her Tinkerbell coloring set and she spend the next 30 minutes absorbed in her artistic world

Robby was sooo excited to have his very own present, and walked around for awhile clutching it like so and showing everyone "my present." Once he finally opened it and found matchbox cars he loved it until he saw that one of the other kids got a train instead. Luckily the other little boy loved Robby's cars as much as Robby loved his train and so we did a little switcheroo and each boy left happy as can be!

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

This fall we decided to take some dance lessons with one of Maddie's good friends, Kailey, and she has had so much fun doing this. It has given her a chance to dance (which she loves) and spend time with a friend one on one. They have loved laughing & giggling together, carpooling to lessons, eating yummy snacks afterwards, dressing up in tutu's and ballet slippers, and of course learning more dance moves. A week before Christmas, Miss Maddie had her dance recital where her and 11 other girls performed a dance to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. They all were so cute and their teacher only teaches a few classes so the recital was finished in 30 minutes! Miss M has adored her teacher, Miss Venessa, and now walks around the house singing that song word for word :) Abby and Miss M eating doughnuts afterwards
Maddie, Mommy and Eli

Eli smiling despite his battle wounds. Two days before Miss M's recital he had a run in with a tin gingerbread man cookie cutter at his grandparent's house that resulted in six stitches on his cheek and dermabond glue under his left nare and above his left eyebrow. Maybe someday I will tell this tale in full details :(

You can see Maddie right in the middle of the picture if you look hard!

Robby {and Daddy} barely survived the recital due to the yummy bowl of hershey kisses in the back just waiting to be eaten....good thing the performance was short :)

Sunday Christmas Pictures

After last years failed attempt to get Sunday Christmas pictures of the kids...I was determined to get some this year.....and success! I managed to capture one image of all three kids sitting together without a single tear shed and they are all semi-looking at the camera.

I have felt behind the eight-ball this entire Christmas season, due to working overtime the first few weeks of December. By the time I hit my break in work I literally had no time to pull everything together for Xmas, let alone Sunday outfits. I normally LOVE doing semi-matching color themed outfits each year, where I will spend hours thinking of cute shoes, pants, belts, ties, tights, bows, necklaces; well you get the idea. Due to a major time issue, this year was rather thrown together without a color theme at all. All in all I think it turned out rather well.

ENJOY!!Robby, Eli and Maddie
Miss M in pink and black

E in blue and khaki

Robby in black and silver

Sister and brother lovin'

Maddie took a turn snapping some photos with the camera, first of just her momma and then when E felt left out he joined in

Later that evening we snapped a couple pics of our whole family at my in-laws and our kids once again went crazy in front of the camera...gotta love pics with wild children

Merry Christmas!

Love the Toronto's

Happy Birthday Eli!

It feels like just yesterday we welcomed this sweet little boy into our family and now already we are celebrating his one year birthday.


We sure love him and couldn't imagine life without him.

Happy Bday E!

Fun Flower

Playtime Outside

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...

I have now lived in Arizona for over half my life and I absolutely LOVE the fact that we have warm winters and I actually don't mind the blistering heat in the summer as well. In fact I practically feel like a native.

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Some of the things I definitely do NOT miss include:

*Halloweens where you put on your pretty costume, only to have to cover it up with your winter coat to the point that no one knows what you actually dressed up as*

*Those bitterly cold days when you just feel cold and WET all over*

*Tracking snow and mud on the floors when you come inside*

*Only being able to wear flip flops and shorts in the summertime*

*Scary car rides with black ice on the roads*

*Shoveling snow from the roads and the driveway almost every day*

*Daily bad hair days due to hat hair and rain/snow*

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As the winter season approaches and the Holidays have begun to set in, I tend to reflect back on my childhood memories. Even though I LOVE Arizona weather, there are definitely some things I miss about living in a state with a real winter. Some of these include: cancelled school due being snowed in~ which turned into sledding days with all the neighbor kids down our steep street we lived on, making snowmen, pulling the icicles off the roof and eating them on the back patio, fun playtime in the snow followed by steamy cups of hot cocoa, cuddling next to the fireplace with blankets and reading stories together, the first snow storm of the season, and most of all the magical feeling that a WHITE Christmas brings. Another favorite of mine growing up in Utah was the annual trek to the Christmas tree lot to pick "the perfect" tree for our house. I loved to walk through all the trees, examining each, and inhaling that fresh pine scent. Then we would attach it to the car and drive back home, singing Christmas carols together. It always seemed like the Holidays were magical at my house.

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When we moved to Arizona we tried out real trees for a few years, but gradually my parents switched over to fake trees after several years of burn marks on our tree as we were taking the Christmas tree down. One of the wonderful parts about marrying into the Toronto family was the reinstatement of having a real Christmas tree. Jesse's parents head up North and cut down their own tree and haul it back to Mesa each Xmas season, & so after we were married that was one thing he definitely wanted to continue (have a real tree each year).

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Now we don't cut down our own tree at the moment, but we still love to go to "our" Christmas tree lot and pick out a tree each year. My kids are happily settling into this tradition and get excited each year for this special night. I had a fairly large break from work this past week and so we made a trip of it on Wednesday evening after dinner. Miss M and Mr R loved running around the lot and looking at all the different sizes of trees. Robby wanted us to get the "liddle-est one" and Maddie kept showing us the "biggest biggest trees". We have gone to the same lot for the past few years to pick out our tree and we always enjoy the free hot cocoa and candy canes provided. As were loading up our tree Robby found this truck that he loved pretending to drive. We had to fight to get him off of it once it was time to go.

E, Mommy, & Miss M

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Once we got home, we set up the tree immediately and pulled out all of our old school christmas ornaments. I long for the day when I can have my own "pretty tree" with fancy color coordinated ornaments and beautiful bows trimming the branches. Until then I will settle for our "kid-friendly" decorations. My kids love looking through each ornament and selecting the perfect spot for each one. It has been so much fun this year to have my little ones excited about helping with this project (although I do have to admit that our little E went to bed promptly after the Christmas tree pick up so we could decorate without his help :)

A picture of the finished project