A Year in Review: 2011
In February we flew to Salt Lake City to celebrate Grandma D's 90th birthday!

 In April, Matt accepted a position at Arizona State University after interviewing for months. I gave Derek his first hair cut and we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

In June we celebrated Derek's 1st birthday (in California and Massachusetts), flew to Arizona for a week house hunting trip and ran our first family 10K.

In July we spent a week in Boston visiting Christen's family. Then traveled on to Saint Louis, MO to attend my cousin's wedding. After 94 years of life, my AMAZING Great Aunt Flo-Flo passed away. And we said goodbye to Menlo Park, CA and moved to Phoenix, AZ.

In August Matt started his new job at ASU and I started classes towards my masters in Educational Leadership.
In September we began to feel more adjusted to Phoenix and get into a routine.
In October we had our 20 week ultrasound and found out we were having a baby GIRL. We took Derek trick-or-treating for the first time.

In November we celebrated Thanksgiving in AZ with my roommate from college and bought our first Christmas tree in 8 years!

In December we spent our first Christmas as a family of 3 in our own house! We also traveled to Salt Lake City to see Matt's family. (This flight to SLC marked the 15th flight Derek has taken in his short 18 months of life!!) Derek turned 18 months old and he continues to be a happy, energetic boy and brings such joy to our family!

We are incredibly grateful for an amazing year. God has blessed our family more than we could ever have imagined and we want to acknowledge His hand in our lives! We look forward to 2012 and all He has planned for us.

Play date with Zack
Derek LOVES going to Zack's house to play. Zack has a great big back yard and Derek has so much fun running around. Zack is about 10 months older than Derek and Derek learns lots from him. I am so grateful for Julie's friendship (Zack's mom) as she was the first friend I made when we moved to Phoenix! Here are few pictures from the most recent play date. The boys are so cute playing together.

Christmas in AZ
This was our first Christmas in our own home. Matt and I purposefully planned to stay home this year and be together as a family. It was AMAZING! For the last 8 years we've traveled to be with family on Christmas, but this year (with Derek being 18 months) we wanted to be in our own home. It was so fun to go to a friends house for dinner on Christmas Eve and to our own church for Christmas Eve service and then wake up in our own house on Christmas morning. We did not leave the house for 2 straight days!! We are very blessed and thankful for the birth of Jesus.

Isaiah 9:6 "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Merry Christmas!

Opening Christmas jammies on Christmas Eve!

 Testing out his new vacuum on Christmas morning.

 Playing with his new kitchen!

Opening presents in his stocking (Curious George and Thomas the Train books!!)

 So excited to get Thomas the Train!

After opening these presents we had to practically beg Derek to sit down and open the rest of his gifts. I actually opened several for him since he was much more interested in playing! :) Ha, the busy life of a toddler!!

Christmas in Salt Lake City
This year we spent the week before Christmas with Matt's family in Salt Lake City. Matt has 4 brothers and sisters so the extended family is very large and Derek has lots of older cousins. Derek had a blast playing with and watching his cousins, picking up some good and not so good habits along the way. This week was full of eating lots of food, laughing, watching movies and just hanging out. We are so blessed to have great family.
While the older cousins and Matt went skiing (2 days), Derek and I went with the younger cousins to the Zoo and the Children's Museum. It was really fun to explore a new zoo and museum. The Discovery Gateway Children's Museum had a really neat imagination area with a construction site, farm, water area, fire truck, post office, house and grocery store. Derek LOVED the construction site (with digger and crane) and driving and fueling the fire truck the best!

  

Derek and his younger cousins

Derek sitting in his first helicopter. At first he was super excited, but when we actually sat inside it was super loud and he wasn't so happy.

Here are a few pictures from the Zoo. It was really chilly at the Zoo, but the kids still had fun.

Hanging out and playing some foosball

We celebrated Christmas one evening and it was so fun to watch Derek open presents. 

Here is Derek with most of his cousins (missing 2).

 

Reading some new books with Grandma and Grandpa

Derek's cousins had a Thomas train table with EVERY possible engine and piece. Derek LOVED playing at the train table.

 Chair rides and playing football with cousin Christian

 

Legos with cousin Ian

Jumping on the trampoline!

Getting a ride on Great Grandma D's walker!

Merry Christmas!
Here is our Christmas card (front and back) for 2011. We hope that everyone has a blessed Christmas and New Year! Thanks to my talented friend, Janet, for designing our card. (Four Harp Designs). We love getting our cards from her!!

Gingerbread Houses
One Christmas tradition that I want to continue with my family is decorating a gingerbread house. My grandmother used to spend days baking and building, from scratch, gingerbread houses for my brother and cousins to decorate. I remember how much thought and time she would put picking out just the right candy for the roofs, the snow, the yard etc. She would make the windows of the house stained glass from crushed up pieces of Life Savers candy. And she made gingerbread men as well. One Saturday before Christmas my cousins and I would gather together at her house for an all day decorating party. It was so much fun and I have such great memories. So, I want to continue the tradition with our family. This year I bought a pre-made and pre-built gingerbread house for Derek to decorate. Maybe next year I will attempt to make it from scratch, we'll see. Derek had a blast putting the candy on and of course tasting the frosting and candy.