Temple Lights

Our church has a temple here in Mesa, and they light it every year and have a choir every night for a month between Thanksgiving and New Year's. I wanted to share some pictures, although it's not as pretty in pictures as in person of course, but it's a special place and our family has added it as another tradition to go and see around Christmas.

Christmas visitors

We were blessed this week to spend time with the Beck/Pitts family, who we know from Ohio. Paul and Debbie Beck are serving a mission for our church in Glendale for two 1/2 more years, and their oldest daughter, Tricia and her family, came to spend the week with her parents. This is the first Christmas that Paul and Debbie have been away from their kids, but it was eased a bit with the Pitts' visit. Tricia was about 16 when Erik was born, and she became our babysitter and surrogate mother to the kids. She and Bill have their own family now: Gavin (8), Abigail (5) and Brandon (3). We were able to see them a couple of different times this past week, spending Christmas eve at the Beck's just like we have for the past 12 years or so. Here's the Pitts family wearing the Arizona Diamondback hats we gave them.

The kids

Erik and Gavin had a good time playing Gavin's Gameboy
Guitar Heros.




















Abigail recently lost her first tooth. She and Sarah bonded like sisters.

Brandon is a really sweet boy!

Nativity

One of our Christmas tradition is for the kids to re-inact the nativity story while Paul reads from Luke in the Bible. It wasn't quite the same without all of Debbie and Paul's other grandkids...Tyler (22) had to substitute as the angel.

This year it was interrupted by a phone call to Gavin from Santa!

Christmas Eve Bingo and Music

There are a few other annual traditions that the Beck's
every year on Christmas Eve. One is playing carols.
This is a picture of all of us holding our designated
chime, which has a number that matches to the music
and you have to hit it as your number comes up.

For bingo, we use M&M's for the chips. When someone gets their first bingo, they get to open his or her gift from the Becks.

Christmas Morn

Sarah and Erik had a good Christmas morning. Sarah's favorite gift was a pink Gameboy DS Lite with a cat and dog game to go along. Erik's favorite gift was his new XBox games. His XBox had gone on the blitz a few weeks ago, and was under warranty, so we had to send it off for repairs. Luckily for Erik, it was returned to him on Christmas Eve by UPS, so he was very happy about that!

Sun's Game

The lawyer that I work for, Scott, took everyone in the office out to dinner Saturday night at Stoudemire's, and then to a Suns game. Here Erik is holding Scott's new baby, Kaitlyn, who is 3 1/2 months. She was a great baby!

Sarah at the game with her Suns facepaint.

Here's a 2 pointer by Shaquile O'Neal! The second video is the halftime show featuring some Santa's putting up some dunks that rival Shaq's (except Santa needs the help of a trampoline!).

Erik's 14th Birthday Party

Erik wanted to have his 14th birthday at Stratum Laser Tag. We made his cake, but the icing stuck to the top of the portable pan, so the Happy Birthday part got smeared, but it still tasted good!

This is Erik celebrating the Call of Duty 5 XBox game from mom, dad and Sarah.

This is some of our party guests, the Pitts family (Bill, Tricia, Gavin, Brandon and Abigail) from Ohio, who are in town to visit Tricia's parents, Debbie and Paul.

This is the rest of Erik's friends, Frances, Ryan, Brandon, Jacob, Tyler, Sarah, and Kendon, then Abigail, Brandon and Gavin again. Erik got "The Dark Night" Batman movie, so some of the boys that could went back to the house and watched that.

Erik's only disappointement was that the girl he likes from school couldn't come because she had to do some charity work (sounds like a keeper!). Regardless, he had a great time! Thanks to everyone who sent money/gifts!

Merry Christmas!

We wish all of our family and friends a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. What better Christmas card than one that comes with music (from Sarah's first band concert)!

Sarah's Band Concert