There were multiple birthday celebrations for Mark this year, but we spend his actual bday in Alaska with family. April and I made his favorite cake - Banana Spice (Gram Boyd special). Probably wasn't as good as Gram's but it did the job. I'm very grateful for all of his 36 years but especially the last 9 birthdays that he has been with me :) Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband and best friend - we all love you very much.
The first day we were in Alaska, Davis literally "lost" his first tooth (might actually be a milestone I'll remember since he lost it on Mark's birthday). It has been dangling for weeks. He has been asking me to pull it but the thought of that brings forward the panic of my own loose teeth as a child so no tooth pulling for me - at least this round. He came inside for dinner and I looked at him and realized it was missing. He had no idea when it had fallen out but he had been in the front yard. My husband was committed to finding his first lost tooth. I thought he efforts in the front yard were hopeless but sure enough he found the thing. I hope in twenty years Davis is super glad that we saved his first lost tooth :) He looks very big and was excited to show people his new smile.
My mother-in-law with Parker and Grayson. Another amazing mom in my life. I can't imagine being a mom without the encouragement, love and support of my mom and Billie.
Me and my boys. I love these little men so much. I don't think there is a day that goes by that I don't thank God that He made me their mom and ask Him to help me be faithful to the huge responsibility of caring for them and shepherding their hearts - one of the most rewarding things in my life!!
Christmas morning the boys were very excited to open their stockings. Our tradition is to do stockings and one gift from Mom and Dad at home before heading out to the other houses of family.
If Grayson looks a little bewildered it is because his brothers woke him up after they couldn't wait any longer. He doesn't know quite what the commotion is about just yet!
Parker in his new cowboy get-up. This boys loves to dress up and really loves cowboy stuff.
Sweet buddies in their matching Christmas jams. Two months later I can hardly pull Parker out of these "kitty" jams and he has worn a hole in the bottom of the slippers.
Sporting their new Alaska jammies on Christmas night. They were missing the AK Johnson cousins!!!
Obligatory family picture at Gram's house.
Matt and Nicci looking a whole lot more pulled together than the rest of us. We shall see if they look that nice in a couple years when they have to drag babies out of the house on Christmas morning . . . . :)
All kinds of cousin happiness at Grandma and Papa's house!!! When it was all said and done the boys had a very fun day. Really the routine of spending two days out of the house is just getting easier and easier and much more fun. Davis was super excited about his Lego Police station and his new DS. Parker wanted a pillow pet more than his next breath and he got one so he was thrilled. Grayson couldn't quite process everything but enjoyed lots of new things - probably in particular his new Megablocks dump truck.
As I type, this is very old news but Phoenix actually did get snow this year and my kids thought it was very cool. It melted before it hit the ground but the clouds were impressive and the flurries were very fun. Obviously the snow on the ground behind Parker is not the product of that storm. My Gram's neighborhood did a thing for the kids were they covered the Community Center's parking lot with snow so I took the kids down to see it. It is sad when this is your children's first snow experience but we are hoping to fix that in the next couple of weeks.
Nonetheless, they thought it was novel and fun to see snow on the ground and play in it. Parker kept asking if he could lay in it and make a "sand angel" - haha - desert boys! 
This is either documentation that I am old and boring or a really cool picture. My blog so I vote that it is a cool picture. These were the awesome clouds that eventually produced snow. They don't look as impressive in a photo but really it was cool to see how you could tell just by looking that it was going to be a crazy storm.
Little boys loving each other in the mall play center while Mark and I took turns Christmas shopping. 
And sadly, the last iPhone picture is a commentary on the illness that struck our family in December and January both. My boys have really had a bad run with colds this season. This was a night in the ER after Grayson had had a fever of over 103 even 5 days after antibiotics. He was so sick that he slept through the long 3 hour waiting room process (and it wasn't even that late in the evening). The verdict was he was resistant to the strong antibiotics he was on for a bad case of strep so it did nothing and he just got worse. New drugs=healthy happy baby!! Yeah.
