The Rundown

Oh my goodness...Christmas is a busy time of year! We made bags of Peppermint Bark Popcorn to give out. (That stuff was extremely popular.) We made the yearly pilgrimage to see the lights at Temple Square. On the way down it was raining like crazy and I kept thinking that maybe this wasn't our best idea ever but after picking up Chad from work and eating dinner at Costco, the rain stopped and we enjoyed an evening of mild weather. Of course we forgot our camera, but we got some fuzzy cell phone pics to commemorate our outing.

At the reflecting pool...what is it about water that makes kids want to climb in even when it is winter?

The temple doors...love that cheeser on Merritt.

The reason for the season. As Elder Holland said, "It is the life at the other end of the manger scene that gives Christmas it's true meaning."

The days before Christmas were filled with parties. On Thursday, many of my family members came over for food, good chats, and fun games. Unfortunately (or not so as you will later see) our couch suffered an accident. Note to 20-year old nephew: flying 8-year olds can cause couches to collapse. The funniest part of the whole episode was aforementioned nephew's expression of shock, disbelief and horror tinged with a wild desire to laugh hysterically. No worries my dear, we got a killer deal on a new sofa and love seat and they are waaaaay nicer. I'm thrilled!

See!?

Christmas Eve included a party at SannDee's, a party with Chad's mom and brother, final wrapping and the stuffing of stockings and then BED! We started Christmas morning with our family tradition of reading from Luke 2 and Matthew 2, then watching The Nativity, then having family prayer, then opening our stockings, then waiting 20 minutes for fresh cinnamon rolls (seriously people...homemade cinnamon rolls in 20 minutes...I found a tutorial online about how to make them ahead of time, partially cook them, freeze 'em up, then serve them hot and fresh when you want them...freaking genius!). We sat at the table together and I ate Cheerios and admired everyone else's breakfast. They were beautiful looking rolls if I do say so myself. Then, it was present time!





















That sweet chair Grant is sitting in was free. Chad gave it a few hours of TLC and it looked brand new! The last photo is Grace and Grant playing with Grace's new castle...that thing was a total find. She loves it! We had lots of fun searching for presents the kids would love. Merritt's happiness at getting 5 new books made my day.

We finished out the year by staying up til midnight painting our bathroom (thanks for all the help getting this project done Dad!). My dad and Chad had previously moved the bathroom light casing to the center, Chad pulled down the mirror, and he and dad patched and mudded and perf-a-taped and sanded until everything was smooth. Everything was ready by New Year's Eve so it was paint and paint and paint again until it was finished. Today we installed the light with all its fixtures, hung the mirror and put up new hardware. Whew! It's nice to now have a bathroom that is 80% done. :)
Sorry I don't have a "before" picture to compare it to, but it looks great. We need to re-caulk some areas, replace the water-damaged baseboards, get a new towel bar (the one I bought was too small), purchase a hand towel for the ring, and paint the cabinets...then we'll be done! (We won't talk about the new counter top I'd like to have...give me five years to raise the money.) It really was a busy end to the year! Now on to 2011 and the much anticipated arrival of our sweet baby who now has a newly assigned due date one week earlier than the previous one...YES! Can we say 35 weeks people?!