the leavitts.: a looOng post about christmas.

oh, hello blog.

sorry for neglecting you this past month.

but i suppose we both should have seen that coming - i always fall behind when christmas rolls around.

but christmas is over, and i am back. so here we go!

we spent christmas in arizona this year.

my parents recently moved to gilbert, so we spent our holidays at their new house.

my sister, and her family, drove over from texas to join the party.

it was fun to have all of us together. it doesn't happen very often.

something else that doesn't happen very often (or ever?) is having matt off work for two solid weeks.

it was so fun spending all our time together as a family. we were spoiled.

i am a little sad that real life has started again.

since i have so much to post about, i am going to list some of the other highlights of our trip in point form.

- our boys were amazing on our flights - even the one to arizona that we had to wake up at 4am to catch. i am pretty sure kids couldn't be better then ours were on a flight, and that makes traveling a whole lot more fun. given, they've had a whole lot of practice!

- the first night we were there, we went to the mesa temple to see the christmas lights display on the temple grounds. we had done that a couple years ago, and it was just as gorgeous the second time.

- we played in the hot tub almost every day we were there, and even made a few crazy dips in the pool too. our boys loved playing in the water. i think they would have stayed in it all day, if we would've let them. being there made me miss our california days - we had so many pool days there. i love playing outside with our boys. for the record, tank was the first one in the pool. he accidentally walked right over the edge and took the first official dip. we blame this on his peanut-sized brain! now i want a hot tub. and a pool. and, if i'm asking for things i can't have right now, i might as well throw in a range rover.

- christmas eve was low key. i liked it. we all made our own little pizzas for dinner, hung out in the hot tub, and read the nativity story. when the boys headed to bed, matt went outside and rang jingle bells by their window. holden is still a bit too young to care much about santa, and chet seems to be a bit too clever to believe all our lies (or maybe we are bad liars?).. but it was still magical!

- it was my goal to keep christmas simple this year. i told one of my coworkers how much we spent on gifts and gave me heck for being so cheap! haha but honestly, i think going overboard on gifts is silly. chet got the camera he has been wanting for months, and holden got the firetruck he has been coveting from the toy store by our house. they got just what they wanted, and they were thrilled about it!

- we took family photos on the gilbert temple grounds. i was worried it was going to be chaotic with 8 kids (and 2 husbands who vowed to make the process difficult!), but it was actually really easy. and they pictures turned out great. my parents house is super close to that new temple. i could see it every morning when i went on my run. it is a beautiful temple. we drove by the temple often, and our boys were excited every time we did. it made me miss living in rexburg, where we could see the temple almost anywhere we went.

- speaking of running, my final tally of miles ran in 2014 was 1612. 1612 miles - 2595 kilometers. i am going to try and beat that in 2015, just for kicks.

- despite the late night scorpion hunts with blacklights, we only saw one scorpion on our trip. of course, i was the one to find it. early one morning when i was the only one awake. i'm lucky like that.

- matt and my dad played two rounds of golf on our trip. matt said he hit 4 homes on the first round! haha but he didn't hit any on the second.

- my parents opened their mission call while we were all together. it was a special night. things are a little bit up in the air right now when it comes to where, and when, they go, but i know whey will be exceptional missionaries when they get out in the field.

- matt and i went on three dates over the holidays. woohoo!! our first date, we went out to a movie - the imitation game. our second date, we went out for dinner with ben & april to some trendy taco place.. where the music was obnoxiously loud. our third date, we hiked camelback mountain. it was pretty chilly when we did that hike. and when we got to the top of the mountain, it was too foggy to see anything. on the way back down the mountain we lost the trail and i was certain we were going to die! at the start of the hike there was a sign whose sole purpose was to scare you into staying on the trail, by threatening you with death if you didn't. and it definitely worked on me! but alas, we didn't die and celebrated that with lunch at cafe rio. oh, how we miss cafe rio. i love spending time with my handsome hubby.

- we did another kid-friendly hike on a different day with all the kiddos. it was in ursery state park. there were lots of tall cactuses on that hike.

- we went to a couple indoor play centers to burn up some energy. the first one was entirely filled with bounce houses. (matt might have enjoyed that one more then the kids!) the other place was this crazy arcade/bowling alley/laser tag/amusement park ride/pizza buffet facility. the kids had a lot of fun at both.

- we set off a bunch of fireworks on the eve of new years eve. we weren't all going to be together on new years eve, so we did things a little premature. no one lost any eye balls, so we will call that night a success.

- we went out for sonic drinks and chik-fil-a shakes, went on late night orange tree raids, played games, worked on puzzles, tried out every park in the neighborhood, and enjoyed having absolutely no where we needed to be. it was a perfect little getaway. now let 2015 begin!