Alexa: Last Day of Kindergarten

Someone is excited (and yet super sad too) about her last day of Kindergarten!

She's ready for school to be done and very much looking forward to summer break.

But she's sad to be leaving her fabulous teacher, knowing she won't ever have her as a teacher again.

 

 

First day of school...Last day of school!

The sassy-ness is still there!

 

I started a new tradition.

I ordered shirts for each of the kiddos with the year they will graduate from high school on and I plan on taking a picture on the last day of school every year so that I have a year by year picture of them, wearing the exact same thing, to see how they grow!

Kind of a fun memento of their school years.  Thanks Pinterest!

 

Getting off the bus for the last time as a Kindergartner!  Wahooooo!

 

 

It's SUMMERTIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another Christmas Tradition

Every year, Kevin asks for the basketball Christmas package for Christmas...it's 4 Arizona home games held during Christmas break.  And it's now become a tradition to take the girls to one of those games for a daddy/daughter date.  The girls love doing this with their daddy...I think this may be the last year that Barrett will tolerate being left out though!

We may just have to buy more tickets next year! :-)

Winterhaven 2012

For Family Home Evening tonight, we went over to our good friends the Chesley's for pizza, then we headed to Winterhaven to see the lights.  It always amazes me how much the residents of Winterhaven do to make this festival of lights possible...huge shout out to them!!!  It wasn't as cold this year, which made it much more enjoyable for all.  We had a great time doing another of our Christmas traditions!

Letters to Santa

Today we went to Santa's special mailbox at the mall to deliver the kids' letters to the big guy!

Here are the munchkins hoping they've made it onto the NICE list this year!!! :-)

 

Christmas Lights at the Zoo!

Tonight we ventured to the zoo to check out the Christmas lights and to see Santa.  It worked out perfectly that there was a very small line to see Santa, like maybe 3 people in front of us, when we got there...MUCH better than waiting forever at the mall!  Barrett was a little apprehensive and the girls would only go if Mommy was in the picture too...but at least we got a picture!! :-)

 

The rest of the time, the kiddos were happy as can be checking out the lights...although a bit disappointed that we couldn't see any of the animals because it was too dark!

 

Can't leave out my handsome Mister!

Kevin met us there on his way home from work for a fun family night!

..::Kickoff to CHRISTMAS::..

 

Kevin and I took the girls to The Gaslight Theatre last night.

This has become our family tradition to kickoff the Christmas season.

This year, the production was "Scrooge", their take on the the Charles Dickens' classic,

A Christmas Carol.

It was great and the girls loved it.

We had such a fun time with the girls and look forward to taking Barrett next year!

 

(A GIANT thank you to my dear friend Emily for watching Barrett

at the very last minute, due to unforeseen circumstances with our original babysitter!!)

Mortenson Family Campout 2012

It's that time of year again...time to go camping! (MY personal favorite time of the year...no sarcasm whatsoever!!!)  However, my sweet Mister LOVES camping, as do my kiddos, so it's a small sacrifice on my part!! :-)

 

Alexa and Barrett look ready to start our camp out, don't ya think??!!!

 

 

We went up to the Whitetail Campground on Mt. Lemmon this year and it was a great campsite.  Spots for 6 or 7 tents, a campfire area and a covered eating area, complete with electricity.  Oh and separate bathrooms for each campsite so we didn't have to share with any other families.  It was great!!

 

The kiddos had fun playing t-ball with Grampa!

 

They always love to spend time with Gramma and Grampa!

 

The "Triple A" cousins all born the same year (Alexa, Ainsley and Amelia)...such cute girls.

 

Can you believe they used to be THIS...???

(can you tell which one is Alexa??? oh my...I sure make squishy babies!!)

 

We had fun roasting marshmallows for s'mores.

But even more fun eating them!!! 

 

Barrett's favorite spot was the van...he wanted to play in it constantly!!

We went on a little bit of a hike the 2nd day...and Barrett even got to go, had the best seat in the house in fact!! 

The treacherous mountain terrain was worth these views...my handsome Mister AND the landscape!! :-)

Alexa chose to stay back at camp to play with cousins so this is our family picture from the hike.

We realized while we were up there, that ALL of the Mortenson siblings made the trek...several cousins and spouses had stayed back at camp, but all of the actual siblings were there so it was definitely picture time!

This little guy just loved being outdoors...sure wish this picture had been in focus cuz he's one handsome little dude!  Man, I love this boy!!

 

And this little lady was beyond infatuated with her new baby cousin, McKinley.  She'd been dying to hold her the whole weekend and was so happy when she finally got the chance!!

Grampa and Gramma with all their grand kids...what a cute, lovable, crazy bunch!

Thanks to all who made this a great campout...looking forward to next year!!

Winterhaven Festival of Lights

There is a community here in Tucson called Winterhaven. With a name like that, it's only fitting that they go all out to decorate for the Christmas season, don't ya think??!! We went to check out this spectacular display of lights tonight and it did not disappoint. Despite the chilly night, it was fun to get out and walk around this neighborhood to see all the lights!

There was even a snow machine that the girls got a kick out of!

That's the kind of snow I can handle!! :-)

Awwwwww....if you can't tell, that is mistletoe that we're standing under!!

And I didn't even have to twist Kevin's arm to get this picture!!! (okay, maybe just a little!)

~Letters to Santa~

Today was our annual trek to Santa's special mailbox at the mall so the girls could send their letters to him. I think Payton actually gets it this year. Even though last year she was all about pointing out each and every Santa she saw and saying "ho, ho, ho" all the time...this year, she understands the whole concept of Santa, and being naughty or being nice, and the consequences of both.

We even started a new tradition called 'Elf on the Shelf' where an elf joins our family, we name it (ours is "Fizzy") and this elf sits on a shelf and SEES and HEARS what goes on each and every day. And each night, Fizzy reports back to Santa. The kids can't touch Fizzy or her magic goes away and she has to return to the North Pole forever. Part of the fun is finding where Fizzy comes back to each morning. The girls LOVE it and I have to say that it's helped in the behavior department....to a degree. At first, it was like a Christmas Miracle...it helped Payton stay in her bed at night for a full week straight. I think that novelty wore off already!! :-( But it's been great reminding the girls each and every day, sometimes MANY times a day, that Fizzy can hear them and do they REALLY want her to tell Santa how they're behaving?? Needless to say, it's a tradition we'll be keeping for as long as we can! We're already looking forward to Fizzy coming back next Christmas season!! Can she stay all year????? :-)

-Gingerbread Houses-

This is totally a messy and time consuming Christmas tradition but the girls loves it...so it's worth it! It didn't help that the icing package split right next to where it dispenses from and so it made it EXTRA messy this year! Hopefully we'll continue to improve on our gingerbread making skillz as the years go by!!

Temple Lights

Today, we headed up to Phoenix for our nephew, Connor's, baptism. It was a great day to be able to spend time with family on Connor's special day. And since we were already up there, we figured it'd be the perfect time to go see the Christmas Lights at the Mesa Temple. The girls loved it last year and we knew we wanted to make it another family tradition at Christmas time. However, today was a very rainy day for Arizona and COLD to boot! But we knew it was going to be chilly and perhaps rainy so we came prepared with umbrellas and warm clothing. Thankfully though, the rain stopped while we were walking around so it was still pretty chilly for us not used to that kind of weather, but at least we weren't getting wet too! :-)

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(My camera was set on a weird setting so all our pictures from tonight are dark and fuzzy!)

It was a fun evening with our little family, enjoying the Spirit of Christmas right on Temple Grounds. The lights were beautiful but they only added to the beauty of the temple!