Christmas Letter 2012

WOW! What a year! I feel like we are just starting to get our feet under us after an entire year of growth and change.

August 2012

Still living in Chandler, AZ and not knowing where we were going to be working this next year, the kids started school again at Dobson Academy. Porter started 4th grade, Eva started 3rd grade, and Ivy started Preschool.

Shortly after school started, Dave received a job offer with Stryker, in the San Francisco bay area. So, we hurried and fixed up our house in AZ, got Porter's tonsils out, found a house to rent in San Jose, CA, and headed West.


September 2012
While the adjustment to living in California hasn't been as smooth a ride as I wanted, there are a lot of things we are enjoying.

We love the beach and go at least once a week. Luckily we have family members close by to come with us and help bury the kids. By AZ standards the beach is very chilly. The kids play in the water without flinching, but I usually sit with a sweater on and wade my feet.

 Porter and Eva are going to a great elementary school just down the street. It's so nice to be super close to the school. Ivy is going to a fun preschool that she loves. She is learning how to read and write very well. She can't wait to start kindergarten.

Our house is much bigger than our home in Chandler. It is 2600sf rather than 1700sf, so if anyone wants to come play, we have plenty of room!

Our ward is amazing! They have been so welcoming and fun to hang out with. There are quite a few kids the same age as ours. It makes it super fun to have people over for games and dinner.







October 2012

As most of you know, we love Halloween! While the costumes weren't as awesome as other years, we still had a lot of fun. Porter went as a Phantom Ninja. Eva was the Evil Spider Queen.

Ivy had 3 different costumes because they were all "itchy!" For her preschool Halloween party, she went as a super cute pink and silver super girl. After getting to class and throwing a huge fit about her costume, they let her take it off and wear a sweater the rest of class. The second costume was a Rockstar at the ward Trunk or Treat. The gloves and tights were too "itchy!" as well. So for Halloween she was a black cat. While the tail was too "itchy", my patience was pretty "itchy" as well and she wore the cat costume until we were done trick or treating. I think next year I will roll her around in the woods and she can go as an Itchy Poison Ivy.

Unfortunately my camera freaked out half way through the week long holiday and I only have pics from the trunk or treat.

November 2012

We partied super hard this Thanksgiving. To start things off, the weekend before Thanksgiving my cousin Eric stopped over with his little family. I hadn't seen Eric for YEARS and it was so cool to see him acting like such a grown up dad...when did that happen?!

For actual Thanksgiving we had my cousin Diantha and her family (4 kids, 1 crazy hubby), Dave's sister Wendy (2 kids, 1 argumentative lawyer spouse), and Dave's brother Ryan (2 kids, 1 long suffering wife). I loved having everyone here! We played tons of games, went hiking, hit the beach, and even had a showing of the Crazy Powell Laughter (if you've seen it, you totally know what I'm talking about).

During the next week, we had neighbors showing up with strange things that had been thrown over fences, on top of houses, into pools, etc. The problem with having so many fun kids to play with, it's hard to know who needs to get in trouble.  So, they all got off pretty light.

December 2012

Ivy turned 5 yrs old on the 18th and feels like she's super grown up. She had a super fun bday party. There were about 30 kids that came and about 15 adults. We were surprised at the awesome turnout. She loved all the presents. We did a pretty low key party. The only activity was that each kid got to decorate their own cup cake and blow out their own candle. Then as party favors, they each got a balloon. It was so super fun and helped her not miss her Az friends quite as much.

The week before Christmas, Porter and Eva tested for their Yellow Stripe in Tae Kwon Do. They did such an amazing job. We are so proud of them and their focus.

This year, we did the 12 days a Christmas for some friends of ours. We dropped of a Christmas story and some candy that went along with the story. It's the first time the kids have done anything sneaky like this and they were super pumped.

House 1 was back in a little nook, but super easy to get to. This was mine and Ivy's house. We would sneak up and she would put the present on the door step and then I would ring the bell and run and hide with her. She loved being sneaky and hiding with me. House 2 was brightly lit with Christmas lights and a big front window that people walked in front of all night. This was Porter and Eva's house because it was the toughest one. Each night we would talk about what they should do if they were caught. They thought for sure there was going to be torture involved if they were ever caught. They decided that they would give fake names if they were every caught...right...because our friends would not know them...:)  it was pretty funny. On a Saturday we had to do it during the afternoon. So the kids dragged out their Halloween costumes to cover up their fluffy blonde hair. So in the middle of December if anyone was a Black Phantom or Spider Queen running barefoot in the rain across the lawn, their code names are "Logan", "Constance" and the Black Panther Princess and they absolutely do not know the Carr kids at all!




Christmas was delightfully simple this year. We had Wendy and Paul (Dave's sister and family) stay the night and play with us all Christmas day. It was so nice to have other kids around and other adults to help make the day super special.

We are having a bunch of Dave's family for the New Year though. We will have Wendy and Paul (of course), Grandma Teri and Grandpa Mel, Hayley and Jess, and hopefully Hobo Kyle...cause what kind of year is it without Hobo Kyle?!?