"JOY to the World!"

I love the Christmas season. I am thankful I can to celebrate the birth of Our Savior, to express my feelings freely, and worship him as I may.  I have enjoyed getting ready for the season, it is a lot of work, but I love the atmosphere it brings into our home. Like in previous post, this is for me to remember what I did, because it is surely not professional, but it is me, it is us, it is home.

No snow or mistletoe...just lights.  We did red, green, and white this year.

"I'll be home for Christmas."

"OH CHRISTMAS TREE"...that is how I felt putting it up. Loved it, when it was done.  Certainly not a fancy pants tree...only Santas' please.

Here are a very few of my favorites.

  Lean your ear this way....Santa.

Disjointed Santa.

Texas Santa

Monkey skin Santa...our endearment term for PJ's.

My "Mary Poppins" Santa.

Another "Texas Cowboy" Santa.


"Jolly Old St, Nicolas"...Collection of Santas' on mantle.  I didn't put them all out this year.

"Up on the Hutch Top"

Cooking with Santa.

If you can't visit Temple Square during Christmas...why not bring it home.  My gift from my children, and Rick this year. Absolutely LOVE it. At night the fiber optic trees light up, just like on Temple Square. It even came with the nativity like the one on Temple Square.  I can almost hear the Choir singing..."Silent Night"

another view

Over the river and through the woods...

to Jarod and Brianne's house we go.  The car knows the way, to arrive without delay, on the dry and level roads... Yes! Grandma got the year off!  Jarod and Brianne were so nice to host Thanksgiving Dinner. They did a great job with the hosting, and turkey.  The screams of disgust from Brianne on the phone as I was guiding her through removing the neck, and entrails, had me a little concerned I wasn't cooking the bird.

Over the river and through the woods.

The happy host and hostess.  Look at all the delicious food.

The kiddle's table.  Jakey and Kate ate supervised with the adults.

   
The adult table. 


Ike and Cade could hardly wait for the pie!

Ike enjoyed it!

Drum roll....Baby Kate's first ever bite of chocolate, just happened to be my fudge!

Israel, Sarah, and Kate.

Ike, Jakey, Cade, enjoyed playing with Jakey's belated Birthday gift from the Matt Morgan family.


This is for you my dear sister, a few of your cuties. We missed you and DJ, and your fruit salad!


Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!  We did!  We missed Jamie and Becky's family in Virginia and Brandon and Elizabeth's family (who drove  24 hours up to Utah with 3 young children). Maybe next year we will all be back together. My fingers are crossed.

Outstanding October

This has really been a October full on fun.  Parties, Boo Boxes, costumes, Pumpkin Patch, you name it, it has been done. Here are pictures of all of our cute Trick or Treaters...

We have our own Optimus Prime and Bumble Bee.

Here are 2 of the most delicious cupcakes on the planet.  We can't forget their defender, Batman is right there by their side..

Every Princess needs her Prince Charming to watch over and protect her.

Every neighborhood should have as much fun as we do in our culdesac.  Our neighbors rock. The children had a great time today. There were jumpy things, bean bag toss, sucker pull, throw the ball through the hoops, basketball, face painting, tatoos, pinatas,  bag decorating, treats, even a margarita machine to make slushies for the kids.  It was amazing, feeling guilty I only donated prizes.

Jarod and Bri came to enjoy the fun.  Ike had a blast.

Had a great crowd.



So good to be surrounded by good people.

Dave left, and Lesley on the right, our great party host and hostess...a freind and her cute baby in the middle.

All things fun, making this an enjoyable October.  I love this time of year!



Happy 56th Birthday Hubby!

We celebrated Rick's Birthday Pappasitos style tonight, since he will be busy with Bishop's stuff tomorrow. Everyone was there except for our cuties in Virginia.

Glad that Bri told the waitress that it was his Birthday...I would have gotten in trouble.

The kids were all pretty good...Papa rewarded them with a balloon!

Jake was pretty amused by the evening festivities.

 

Gave Elizabeth the night off...DQ made the cake!  Bay and Papa blowing out the candles!

Happy Birthday, Rick, Papa, Papa Rick, Dad!  We love you!

Double Your Fun!

"Phantom" was an excellent production.  The special effects were fabulous! We had wanted to go the last three times we were in Vegas, but never made it.  It was worth the effort to walk over and get the tickets.  We were pleasantly surprised that it was over by 8:45pm that gave us the opportunity to go to the "Lifehouse" concert presented by SAP.  It was so fun.  The music was fantastic.  Those who know me, know I had a hard time not wanting to dance!

We had upper level front row seats for "Phantom".  It was fun to be eye level with the chandelier when it dropped.

I wasn't suppose to take this....no camera's please.  I knew that I couldn't take them during the performance.

This is the lead singer of "Lifehouse."  If I were younger... like 17... I could have gotten a crush.

More pics...

Here is the dream team... Gary Ramsey, Rick, and Anne Wolfean.

Gary Ramsey and Kathy Rennard.  Kathy usually helped with presentation, but opted to do a round table discussion this go around.  She was happy she did after she saw the that 300 people had signed up for their presentation.

More of the same.



Ann and her husband Ricky.  They love Vegas!  

Even though we were probably the oldest people there, we had a great time.  Almost made you feel young again!  It was good to be out and about.

Wednesday night in Vegas

We went to the Wynn for dinner last night.  We went to Sinatra's, seven Baker Hughes employees, and me!  We had a great time eating and visiting.  The walkways throughout the Wynn are colored with butterfly printed carpet and beautiful tile inlaid butterflies.  I would have taken more pictures,  if someone was a wee more patient. Brianne, my daughter loves butterflies, I took the pictures for her.

There were also tree lined walk ways. The trees had flowered balls hanging down from them.

Thanks to Sangita for taking our picture.

After we walked back we went to "illy's" for gelato. We shared a little cup full of strawberry, it was delicious.  It was a great night.