Christmas Week 2014

Christmas 2014 was a success!  We were able to spend it with family and that is always a treat.  Lindsey, Brenen, and Briggs were visiting from Virginia.  We soaked up as much time as we could with them! 

^^  We LOVE walking around and looking at awesome Christmas lights!  We also love looking ^^

 at houses and dreaming of our future home, yard, and pets. :)  There is a great neighborhood right next to our apartment complex that has the best light displays and they even have a competition between the houses in the neighborhood.  One house even had the BSU football team as part of their lights! 

^^ Shelby's version of elf on the shelf!  I found this guy in our Christmas tree ^^

 one afternoon...apparently it had been there for several days...I'm not so observant to details sometimes. :)

^^  It started snowing on Christmas Eve afternoon and everyone was so excited-especially ^^

 Lila.  Briggs on the other hand wasn't sure what to think of it. :) 

^^ On Christmas Eve afternoon we made Gingerbread houses...we had quite the city going on! ^^

  I thought that I had more pictures but I can't find them now...

^^ Lindsey and Brenen's finished masterpiece. ^^

^^ Christmas morning we woke up and Santa had come!  He brought us lots of candy ^^

as well as some great gifts!!!

^^ After opening Christmas gifts we spent the rest of the morning playing with our new ^^

 toys which included the Frozen songbook-Lila loved singing along to the songs as I played and Curtis even jammed out to some Frozen songs on his guitar!

^^ Shelby got an indoor basketball hoop for his office so we played a lot of knee ball to break ^^

 it in. :) 

^^ Or I should say everyone except Dad played knee basketball. He had knee surgery ^^

a few days before Christmas so he spent lots of time resting his knee and elevating it so he can get back to exercising and playing basketball soon!

^^ Snow on Christmas morning!!! Not much but we still count it as a white Christmas! ^^

^^ Briggs eating Christmas dinner before everyone else. ^^

^^ This kid is such a ham and so sweet...nothing like a cute, chubby baby. ^^

^^ Playing games and singing Christmas carols. ^^

                                                

^^ On Saturday we went swimming at a hot springs with my aunts and uncles on my mom's ^^

 side and their families.  It was so fun to see everyone!  Afterwards we had dinner, desserts, and games.  We also celebrated Briggs' first birthday a few days early since we won't get to celebrate it with him on his real birthday...

^^ Not going to lie-I helped him out a little to make his cupcake mess a little messier...:) ^^

^^ This was the first time in six years that all six of my siblings were around for Christmas.  ^^

Lots has happened in the last six year-missions, marriages, babies!  

^^ Proof that my Mom was around. :)  She's playing the piano and was always busy making ^^

sure that things were taken care of.  We are grateful for her!!!

We are so grateful for the Christmas season and for Jesus Christ!  Now on to New Year's and all the excitement of that!!!!  We hope your Christmas was as wonderful as ours was!!!

Thanksgiving Chain and other happenings

We love the Thanksgiving season!  As a family we are still getting holiday traditions started.  This year to count our blessings we decided to make a "Thankful chain."  Every night after family scriptures we each took a strip of paper and wrote what we were thankful for that day.  Our strips of paper slowly grew into a chain.  I specifically cut out Christmas colors so that we could hang the chain on our Christmas tree to remind us to continue being grateful throughout the whole holiday season!  Among the things that we are grateful for: Jesus Christ, Home, Running, Shelby, Car, Job, School, hot chocolate, and much more!!!  

I love being able to look at our thankful chain on our Christmas tree and can't wait to keep doing it every holiday season!

The actual week of Thanksgiving and the holiday was a little different for us this year.  Thanksgiving was my holiday to work this year and I also was scheduled to work that whole weekend.  So, we celebrated and relaxed together Sunday through Wednesday.

On Monday we went on a much needed date.  We walked around the Village and saw the cutest little outdoor ice skating rink...we are totally going back to skate one of these days!

We also bought our first pet...a beta fish which we named Mufasa. :)  Since we can't really get any other pets until we have a house with some sort of yard, this will be our only pet for a little while-the joys of apartment living!

Monday night there was an Ecumenical (Interfaith-don't worry I had to look up the word too :) Thanksgiving Service that our stake participated in at St. John's Cathedral in Boise.  I love cathedrals and was so excited to go!!!  It was a little different than I thought it would be and I didn't get the greatest pictures of the cathedral with my phone, but you get the idea.  Beautiful stained glass windows, singing with the great acoustics cathedrals provide, and very educational as far as learning about different faiths and cultures that are in the Treasure Valley!

We also decorated our Christmas tree prior to Thanksgiving.  We usually wait until after Thanksgiving but like I said, this year we had to be flexible.  Shelby went to Twin Falls to spend Thanksgiving with his parents and his siblings that could be there this year.  I'm not going to lie, it was torture for both of us...I spent some time with my family after sending Shelby on his way to Twin and on Thursday night I went to my Grandparents for a short time after work and ate their Thanksgiving leftovers.  I told Shelby to take some pictures while he was out of town but well, we have a lack of pictures. :)  Oh well, we hope everyone had a happy and healthy Thanksgiving and a great start to your December!!!