December

For whatever reason, my pictures uploaded in the reverse order, so rather than be bothered to delete all 38 collages and try again, I'm just going to leave them as they are and report on the month from end to beginning.  For my 2 loyal readers- my sweet and dear daughters Ky and Jess, I'm sure they won't mind.  (update... I completely forgot to mention my dear husband as one of my loyal followers.  So sorry honey!) For anyone else reading this- you're probably scared away from hearing there are 38 collages coming and you want out anyway!  haha.  Read on faithful followers...btw- who are my faithful followers?  I only know of a couple of you besides my girls- Von and Niki. If anyone else reads my blog regularly, I'm interested to know who you are- so let me know!

We had a terrible weather day the few days before New Years Eve. It was so windy and cold that it was terrible to be outside for even a couple minutes. Here's a look at the snow piled up on our front porch.  We had a fun New Years Eve party with all the Cache Valley relatives that the Skeens hosted.  We went to their house for a tasty Mexican dinner, then went to Trace's church for some games and more food. It was a great party! 

This is Evan getting a taste of his first thing besides breast milk and formula.  He tolerated it but didn't love it. I 'm sure he will come around.  It was fun to witness this first in his life.

Some misc pics of Evan.  Cause you just can't see too many pictures of him, right?

I took these pictures from my car driving around Logan the day after Christmas.  Everything looked so pretty with the new snow!

The day after Christmas we had the Bundy's over for leftovers and some fun minute-to-win it games that Jess and Brad had.  And, after sitting in the garage for a year and a half never getting used, Bundy and Brody moved the ping pong table down to our game room and we had fun playing around the world.  Hopefully it will get used more now!

Here are some pics of Jake from his area before he got transferred on the 16th.  The top left picture is a family they were working with, the top right is the ward mission leader whom he loved, the bottom left is Sam, an investigator he loved, and him and his companion at the ward Christmas party. 

Look at this adorable little Santa's helper!  Could he be any cuter?

And these pictures!  To die for! Ky took them with her new camera on Christmas night and I just can't get enough of his adorable face.

We had such a wonderful Christmas.  It was wonderful to spend most of the day with Ky, Brody, Jess and Brad and to get to Skype with our missionaries at the same time.  Mike and I had breakfast and opened presents at the Weyerts while the girls were at their in-laws, then we got together at 1:00 to Skpye w/ the boys and open presents.  It was so great!  We then spent the evening at the Bundy's eating and playing games.  A perfect day! (I'm just realizing that I put the pic of Evan looking at the tree in this collage too- but it's so cute that it deserves to be seen twice!)

It was so awesome to look outside on Christmas morning and see 5 new inches of snow after having hardly any before that.

We had a fun Christmas Eve at the Weyerts.  Delicious food, great company and fun activities.

Cam arrived in Chicago on Dec 15 and is loving it!  He's in a town called Evanston which is just 4 blocks from downtown.  He loves Chicago! 

The Calls invited us to come to their cabin in Star Valley on the 22-23 and we were so happy it worked out for us to go. The Nelsons and Freda were there too and we had such a fun time. They had just finished their new barn (the builders called it the party palace which is more fitting than a barn...) which houses a huge garage for all their toys, a 2 lane bowling alley, 8-9 arcades and 2 bedrooms that sleep 20 people!  It was so amazing and awesome.  We had such a fun time playing games, visiting, eating and going snowmobiling.  We hope to go back again soon!

Everyone LOVED Evan and he never lacked for someone to hold him and play with him.

I got this idea from a family in our stake so thought I'd try it out this year in honor of the boys.  We had a Pday party that was so much fun!  Everything we did started w/ the letter P.  We all wore our PJ's, ate pizza, pretzel jello, pringles, pop, and played games that started with P. It was so much fun!  It will definitely become a tradition.

We should have planned this better and had our party on the day we went to the Piano Guys concert!  haha.  But this awesome concert happened the day before the party.  It was AMAZING!  I'm so glad we could all go. We had a fun evening together.

Evan is getting so big with rolling all over the place and sitting up on his own for up to a minute!  It was so wonderful to see him every day for 15 days.

We had a nice Christmas dinner at our friends the Broadbents along w/ two other couples. We had an amazing meal, wonderful entertainment and lovely conversation.

Jake is going great in Washington!  He had his first baptism!  Well, the first for him to actually be the baptizer.  He was so happy about this wonderful woman's acceptance of the gospel.  The bottom right picture shows the amazing nativity display that a stake in the area did for Christmas. They leave it up for 2 weekends and get a lot of people coming by to look at everything. They have displays set up in classrooms too, so they have the wards that usually go to that church relocate for 2 weeks.  It's a big deal and Jake was completely blown away by how awesome it was and what a great missionary tool. 

These are pics of Evan from before they came to Utah for Christmas.  Look at that sweet, innocent face!  If you were Santa, wouldn't you give him everything he asked for?  haha

I absolutely love my house decorated for Christmas!  I can never believe I will ever want to take everything down after Christmas, but I am always ready by January 1st.

We had a lovely Christmas dinner at the Griffins with Mom and 5 of my 6 siblings.  Gary made us an amazing turkey dinner, then we were serenaded for a half hour by 5 USU students. It's always so great to spend time with my brother and sisters.

Cam's last week in Mexico.  Look at the height difference between him and a sister missionary!

More pictures of this sweet boy- just because...

Top left: 12 days of Christmas package I sent to Cam.  Top right:  I'm so obsessed with having a fruit protein smoothie every work day that I took the fixings for one and mixed it up in my car one day after a hair appointment because I didn't have time to come home before going to work...Bottom left:  I went to an amazing book sale and got all these books for $6! Bottom middle:  I sure miss the boys being around when it comes time to clean the hot tub. Luckily I picked a warm day to do it.  Bottom right: Got a great deal on Bath and Body Works soap.  All these for $22! (there were 15)