Lights, Gingerbread Houses, Parks, Party!

It's always so fun coming back to AZ for Christmas. Michael and I lucked out and grew up 5 minutes away from each other, which means every holiday is down in Mesa! We get double the fun every year since we can usually hit all the traditions and parties of both families. Scheduling can be tricky but it always works out in the end. I have soooo many pictures from all the fun events leading up to Christmas so it will take a few posts to get everything up - but for now here's batch one of photos! 

We always go to the Mesa Temple lights with Michael's family, and this year was especially fun since Lydia could appreciate them! She was in heaven running around such a beautiful place. And she's a total goofball - she kept doing this thing where she'd full on sprint for 10 seconds and then just lay down in the middle of the cement (and right where everyone was walking!) and take a 1 minute rest. Ha! Then she'd jump up and run run run again and then sprawl out on the ground! It was hilarious. 

So this gingerbread house was actually still back in Salt Lake the day before we left. How cute is this Trader Joe's kit? And the best part was that it already came with decorated people so no matter how little we did it looked semi legit ;).

Annual Christensen hike! Which has sort of turned into more of a nature walk with all these kiddos.

And pretty sure we're going to have to make Shake Shack part of the tradition, too ;).Yum.

Another Christensen tradition is to let all the grandkids run around at this awesome Riverview Park in Mesa! It's only a few years old and has tons of fun activities for all ages. 

Lydia's personal favorites were the slides and a giant swing.

(I wasn't a huge fan of the concrete slide though ;). I mean really - how comfy can that be?)

Said swing! Please note the pure joy on that little face. Lydia loves nothing more than playing with her daddy!

And many tears may or may not have been shed when us mean parents forced her to finally get off, haha. A nice little foreshadowing of terrible twos I suppose!

Also let's all appreciate the short sleeves and sunshine in these pics!! I get that white Christmases are beautiful, but man it's hard to beat 68 degrees every day!