A Day With The Graffs: Christmas & New Years

HAPPY 2019 EVERYBODY!!

Dallin gaming at Brian's when he was in Utah

"Friendsmas"..... ?

It's like "Friendsgiving" but with Christmas... is that a thing?

I seriously love my friends so much.

Our festive matching outfits!

My mom told me she was getting Dilly a dorky outfit... what she left out was that she got me one too! haha here we are wearing only half of the getup.

But we got so many compliments! haha crowd favorite

Biking/scootering around tempe town lake

This has been something I've wanted to do ever since we moved here and I freaking loved it. At the beginning of the day I said, "This is either going to be a colossal nightmare or the best day of my life." I am pleased to say it was the latter.

This is my mom falling off while trying to go up the hill. (With her mouth open). Hilarious

We rented the electric scooter and the bikes right there at the lake with an app.

Photoshoot

We took them to the same spot to go take pictures. For the record, I did my mom's hair. Evidently it's not in style, but hey, the pageant world taught me, "the bigger the hair the closer to heaven so tease it to Jesus."

Isn't that gorgeous!? Dillis took this!

Hallelujah the Staircase is done!!!!

This project has been soooooooo long. 3 coats of white, 3 coats of brown, touch ups for wall color, white, and brown, and two coats of top coat. It made a huge difference so I'm glad I did it. But OMG I would rather put needles in my eyes than do that again.

Here is a picture of the door too. It looks so much better now that it matches. Little by little, I'm getting rid of all of the honey oak in this house. All I have left is the upstairs bathroom.

Festive outfit at school before Christmas break

Faculty Christmas Party

They had a bunch of games and then we all got 25$ gift cards to target and ate lunch. This game was the pie eating contest. It made me sick just watching them! But everyone was super motivated throughout the whole thing because if you won any of the games you win 100$! I signed up for the hula hoop, but as it turns out, I'm not good at hula hooping. I went up for the limbo just on a whim because I didn't think I would be good at it. THEN I WON! It was the grandest moment of my life. And it definitely helped with all the expenses of the holiday season.

Ahhh....
Christmas break. The naps, sitting around all day, eating too much all the time, doing fun things, not worrying about work, watching shows, staying up late and sleeping in...
I'm going to miss this.
Usually I can't wait to go back, but this time going back is harder for some reason. I was really worn out I guess!

This is tom trying to talk bentley into getting in the pool. Spoiler: he didn't. It's 40 degree water so I don't blame him.

Hiking

The weather here is so pretty! It was in the 70s when we were hiking in late december! I love arizona.

the girls

the salt river

Christmas!

christmas eve dinner

The lights at the church

christmas eve church service

It was really cool!

The kids on christmas morning

Christmas morning breakfast

Opening presents

Dilly surprised me with a trip to NYC with Ryan and Shayle in July! omg I can't wait. Between that and our half marathon in san diego, and jill's wedding in illinois, we are going to have a great year of travels!

On christmas day we went to see aqua man and it was so good! the bathrooms were so nice we had to take a mirror selfie

Our walks with the dogs

We went to this beautiful italian restaurant in san tan village and Tom hated it but the rest of us loved it.

Topgolf

They had never been to top golf before!

Fire

Jake and Bentley got into a big fight and after that Jake was super needy and clingy for a few days. He wanted to be picked up all the time. So it was nice having him on my lap for a fire because he usually doesn't even come outside for that.

Sammy

She is so sneaky. We just find food wrappers in the backyard from time to time so we think she can get up on the counters. She also has random times of major anxiety and then other times where she is totally chill and lays around outside.

Running

We fell off the wagon a little but now we're back on it! We have had a great time finding beautiful places to run here and Dallin is improving so much! It's so much fun doing it together, but it is the worst thing ever when you do it alone. Dallin joining me has really changed the game a lot for me.

I'm holding up a 4 because we did 4 miles that day and I was super proud of Jake because I didn't think he could go that far.

The Alabama bowl game

I forget what it was called but we got all matching alabama apparel and grilled and watched it. Of course they won.

Look how cute! a Jersey and cheerleader outfit!

And we got matching shirts too

The kids didn't want to stop watching the game to take a picture lol

More Running

It's so exhilarating when you feel yourself getting better and it gets you excited for whats to come and its rewarding

Dallin was really sore so he decided to take an ice bath

This is us running in the coldest weather so far. It was below freezing but we still went and it was actually not bad with the 3 of us. I got a stroller so that we can take Jo too :) just waiting for it to arrive !