messiah

since it's pretty highly likely that we'll end up far, far away for the next few years, i decided i better take advantage of the last chance i'll have to sing messiah with the gila valley community for a while.  i sang in the messiah for two years of high school and two years of college while i was at eac.  since i've left, annie's taken up my spot in the choir.  it was fun to go back and sit next to her to sing with the great choir one more time.  if only i'd remembered to take a picture...

we got to thatcher on my dad's birthday.  he asked for self-tie bow ties, so i found a pattern to make one for him and made a matching one for cody.  they got to wear their 'same-same' ties to church on sunday.  cody kept pointing to each one during sacrament meeting saying 'tie....tie...tie.' 

my parents have a little stool that we used when we were little.  it was just the right size for cody on this trip.   

it quickly made its way to the kitchen where it became the 'snack stool' and a great spot to watch the muffins cook.

 cody always loves being helpful.  after annie and i got back from the gym one morning, cody helped annie and grandpa put up the christmas lights.

he was also grandma's model for several christmas presents (for cousins)

the doctor coat

super-hero cape

(monkey made the perfect side-kick model)

he looked especially awesome when he would run around in the cape.

he was even nice enough to help annie mow her lawn....or maybe annie was just nice enough to let him help since it was way more work with him 'helping'

grandma berta has all kinds of fun toys and hats to play with.  cody loved to pull this train around and around and around the kitchen/living room.  even with all the real hats, he came up with his very own colander 'hat.'

 we also had all kinds of fun new treats while at grandma and grandpa's house.  grandma taught cody how to lick the beaters. 

we had airplane and truck shaped pancakes.

and since we couldn't go to storytime at the library, grandma treated cody to several rides on the carousel and horsey rides at thriftee.  he was pretty thrilled.

we had some cool nights and mornings, but when it warmed up enough, we took some bread out to the fairgrounds to feed the ducks and geese.  wow, they were anything but shy!  they probably would have tried to eat cody's hands if he'd held any bread out to them at their level.  he wasn't even intimidated by them though when he was on the ground. 

there is a new park at the fairgrounds that we checked out too.  its covered with lots of slides and some swings.  perfect for the hot summer weather since most of the other parks are not covered and too hot a lot of the year!

since cody's the only boy with lots of girl cousins right now, he will surely participate in lots and lots of tea parties through the years.  we had one in the arizona room before we came home. 

cody did such a good job drinking out of his tiny cup and putting raisins and little cookies on his plate before eating them.  i think he'll fit in just fine with all the tea parties in the future.

cody loves to snuggle in bed and read stories in the morning.  i'm not sure if he or grandma and grandpa were more excited to read stories while we were there!

as always, i get lots of picture of what cody's doing, but miss all the pictures of what i'm up to.  while there, i got our christmas pjs made (plus several other sewing projects), did a bit of shopping with my mom, checked out a new bakery in town, watched season one and two of downton abbey to get ready for season to start, and got pedicures with annie and mom.  definitely a fun trip all around.

while we were gone, ryan had to stay home and work for a few days.  he also had an interview in texas.  we changed his flight so that we could pick him up on our way through phoenix and drive home together.  we stopped for lunch and got a free shake.  definitely the highlight of the meal if you ask cody :)

now we're glad to be home and excited to get ready for christmas!