One of my most favorite things

I love Christmas cards.  I love creating and sending them and I absolutely love receiving them.  I decided to do something new this year.  I scanned all the cards (that I can find) so I can keep them but not KEEP them.  I hope nobody minds...and if you send me one and you aren't here, I apologize.  The move caused quite the mess that I had to sort through.

Thanks for the love.

And here was our Christmas card this year.  I sent out like 45 of them so if you didn't get one, that means I don't have your address.

December Part 2

Its time to get back to this blogging silliness. So here it is...the rest of December 2013. 

Christmas Eve lights at St George Temple.

Looks like Santa has been here.

Christmas Morning...nuff said.

Christmas breakfast with family.

We packed up and headed north on Christmas Day.

Next Christmas celebration with the family.

Playing with Max in the tent.

We took a little drive up to Midway and stopped by the Homestead Crater.  How can I have lived here for almost 20 years and I didnt know this thing existed??  We didnt swim but someday we will.  Its a little freaky though.

Right down the road, the Midway Ice Castles were fun to see.  Its pretty much this gigantic icicle that you can walk through.  Its pretty cool (literally).  If you have seen Alex Boye's rendition of Let It Go with the One Voice Childrens Choir (Google it), it was filmed there.  Very cool.

 

December had LOTSof selfies and random faves

December...part 1

I have been avoiding all my December pictures like the plague.  Its time to finally post them.  As I was going through them, I realized there were like 465 pictures all taken in December.  This may call for 2 separate posts.

This was too funny and memorable not to post.  Braiden's first infant care project for 9th grade Teen Living class...a 5lb bag of flour with strict instructions (If only the real ones came with instructions).  All I know is that I am pretty sure little "Shorty" died in the first 24 hours.  She had no chance.

Christmas decorating in Grandma's basement.  We did what we could with our little space and the kids had fun doing it, as always, even though it was with one tiny little box of Christmas decorations.

Mother nature played a bit of a prank on us in December of 2013.  On the 5th of December it snowed in St George...and it snowed and it snowed and it snowed.  By 6pm that day, there was like 8 inches of slush all over the roads with no plow or shovel in sight....anywhere!  Nobody owns a snow shovel in St George.  Why would they?  It was nuts!!  People all over the roads, sliding backwards down hills, church was cancelled and people everywhere were SNOWED IN!!  It was insane and quite memorable. So much for moving away from the snow...although the 75 degree weather in January more than made up for it. 

Paige had her one and only dance concert with The Vault in December.  The Vault has kind of a different philosophy about doing dance performances where they do these concerts to raise money for a charitable cause rather than having the parents spend tons of money on costumes.  I really loved The Vault.  I hope more studios follow in their footsteps.

Paige and I discovered the Rainbow Loom in December as a favorite past-time.  We spent quite a bit of time watching YouTube videos to learn how to do these things.  Its was fun but I am pretty sure I pulled out a couple fists full of hair. We ended making lots of them to give away as gifts. It became somewhat therapeutic.

December 20th I went to my company Christmas party at La Caille. Eric couldn't go so Amy was my hot date for the evening.  It was a blast complete with photo booth, yummy food and all the Shirley Temples we could drink. Verisk really outdid themselves in 2013.  

Of course the highlight of the evening was that I was awarded the Verisk Health Q4 Outstanding Employee Contribution Award.  It was nice to be recognized.  I work for a great company that takes good care of its employees.

The next week we had yet another Christmas Party in the St George office (I got to double dip).

Delaney and the whole fam met us at Chili's for a little Christmas lunch. 

I just love this picture.  See the remnants of the snow storm?  That was about 2 weeks later.  A little rain storm eventually washed it all away.  Aren't my kiddos cute?

Santa 2012

These pics definitely deserve their own post.

I love that FotoFly does these Santa pics.

That is actually Eric dressed as Santa.  What a perfect way to prevent the Santa freak out...and he's just so stinkin cute.

Do you remember December?

So I posted Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in real time (5 or so months ago..hehe) but here is the rest of December 2012.  

Ya, so in December...it snowed, and snowed, and snowed.

This is the only picture I took on New Years...so there you go.  Happy New Year.

And, we cant forget Decembers favorite randoms....I especially love the one of Max (top middle).  That's the "give it to me or I will cut you." look that a 18 month old can be so good at.  Oh and lets not forget Braiden (upper right)..really, I don't know.

Christmas 2012 (real time)

I know that I still behind on my posting and I do vow to catch up but I am tired of putting today's blog-able moments on hold just because I haven't caught up!  There's just no excuse and I am only going to create a perpetual lag of posts...so instead, I have decided that I am going to confuse everything and blog the present and the past, as I see fit until I get all caught up.  Sorry if this confuses anyone but this is my blog, so my rules.  The truth is, I am probably the only person that ever reads this anyway, right?  ha.  Well, the truth is, I do this for me.  

So here it is, in real time, Christmas Eve 2012 only a day after... please hold all applause till the end, and Christmas Day 2012 the day of!  Woot Woot!

We started the day with a massive snow storm out here in little Eagle Mountain.  I wasn't so sure I was going to get Eric out the door (he hates driving in the snow, or actually, when I drive in the snow) but we did leave and braved the drive back to Draper for our annual Christmas Eve Sugar Cookie Extravaganza (I made that up) with our group of best pals and kids from Draper.  It was really fun.  The kids decorated sugar cookies and made Reindeer Food while the parents watched, helped, directed and controlled the madness (there were 20 kids there between the 6 families..WOW!)

The question of the day: How do you keep little kids from licking the knife and putting it back in the bowl?  Answer:  Who knows!  We certainly haven't figured it out.

I love these ladies!  We have all been friends and neighbors for so long.  I am glad they still invite me back even though I don't live there anymore!

Reindeer Dust (a careful mixture of oatmeal, glitter and confetti) is especially good at attracting those magical critters!

Christmas jammie time!  (Braiden went to his Dads house the year and Max wouldn't hold still)

Max wasnt feeling so hot.  I hate it that he wasn't feeling good but nothing beats a super-snugly baby.

Santa knows how to party!!

CHRISTMAS DAY 2012

Paige, Cam and Max didn't require any coaxing to get into the gift-opening spirit.

Braiden got home soon thereafter for Christmas Morning #2 and found his was around his loot just fine.

Then Grandma and the rest of the fam came over....and the house exploded again.  We are so blessed. 

I think this year has been a little different and sentimental for Eric and me because this is our first Christmas in a different house than our Draper house since we have been married.  It has proven to be a great one but still, different.  Who knows, next year we might even be in a different house.  Not sure yet, but things can change very quickly as it turns out.

This is AWESOME.

It's been FOREVER since the last time I posted anything on this blog.  I blame Facebook, my children and my job.   There you go.  The last thing you knew we celebrated Halloween.  I promise we have not been frozen in time since then.  So this is going to be a super-duper awesome catch up post.   K, ready?  Go!

Thanksgiving at my house was awesome.

December Festivities (tree trimming, mall massaging, and family fun) were awesome.

Paige's Dance Recital was completely awesome.

My Christmas gift project (I made like 25 frames).  I thought it was pretty awesome.

Family coming over to play....awesome.

These pictures...I just love them...and they are awesome.

Cookie decorating on Christmas Eve with friends was very awesome.

Baby Max is so, well, awesome.

Christmas Day...there are no words...except awesome.