Tamara, Tom, and Kids: January 2016

It was super fun having my two sisters and their families along with my parents for the holidays this year. I just love having family around and it makes everything seem so much cheerier with babies and kiddos everywhere! Little Dean is the cutest little guy and everyone loved kissing him on his chubby cheeks!

We took a trip to the Mesa Temple Lights to celebrate the New Year. I just love that place!

Later in January, Tom and I were able to fly to Utah to do some work on our new Draper home. We went to a granite supply house and picked out some slabs for our kitchen. We chose a really pretty one with gray and white tones. I love it!

The house is really coming along. This time we visited, there was heat which was a really good thing because we about froze in December when we visited. The drywall was up, windows in and baseboards painted.

The view is 99% the reason why we chose this home. There is nothing like it! I could sit and stare out that window for hours and at night . . . oh, at night the twinkle lights of the city light up my bedroom and kitchen windows. I have always wanted to live where I could see the lights of the city out my window and pretty soon, I'll have a house like that! We feel super blessed and so grateful. I hope it will be a blessing to my family having this home.

It's my Kelsey's 18th birthday and I can hardly believe it. She has been such a fun daughter to raise because she adds so much light and laughter to our home. She has such a fun personality and loves to keep traditions alive. We all love her sense of humor and I will miss her terribly when she leaves for college this summer. But that's not for a while . . . thank goodness!

When Tom and I were in Utah, we went through the new Provo City Center Temple Open House. It is a super special place for me since I graduated from BYU in the Provo Tabernacle, which is now the temple. They have absolutely restored the beauty and kept the integrity of that building. It's a construction miracle that they were able to raise the skeleton of the exterior and dig a basement while the building was on stilts. It's absolutely gorgeous and I can't wait to do a session after it's dedicated.

Tom and I love to come skiing every year. It's our anniversary weekend getaway, even though sometimes we can't coordinate it with our actual anniversary date. But I love going to Deer Valley and Tom has spoiled me by taking me to nice dinners and making it such a fun time. The weather was gorgeous but REALLY cold. Well, it was cold to me. See how I'm all bundled up and Tom has his zipper undone! ha ha!

This is Jodi Nielson, Suzy's mother. Suzy is serving in Concepion, Chile right now so I thought it would be fun to go to lunch and see how she is doing. We LOVE the Nielsons and I especially get along really well with Jodi. She is super easy to talk to and it was really fun getting to know more about her!

Hailey's favorite place for crafts is As You Wish, a ceramic store. We decided to paint ice cream dishes and I think they turned out pretty nice!

We are super lucky in that Elder Jeffrey R. Holland came to our stake to speak to the youth. Only the youth were allowed in the stake center because of seating, but the parents were allowed to watch the conference via satellite in another chapel. I took this pic from the screen. What an amazing opportunity! Even the sunset that night looked like it was custom painted to host an apostle of the Lord in our area.

I had the best Mommy Day with each of my girls. Kelsey and I did some shopping at San Tan Mall and got Froyo!

Hailey and I took a day off to go birding then have a picnic lunch of Panda Express! We even snuggled on the blanket and watched the clouds in the sky. It was the best!

My two snow-bunnies!!!

Just a few fun pics of the holiday time. We went roller skating with the Davis and Laduke Family and it was SO fun skating and pushing the strollers! ha ha!