Christmas Morning

Not a great photo, but in our small living room, I couldn't get a good one from the front! The kids are just checking out the goods in the top picture. Lauren showing off nail polish from Grandma (in her stocking) and Dallin and Sara. We had a very nice Christmas morning.

Adorable!

One of my kids at school gave this adorable little owl to me for Christmas. I think it's the cutest stuffed animal I've EVER seen! I LOVE it!!!! Thank you Taylor :)

Happy Birthday Dallin!!!!

Dallin turned 14 on Sunday. Yikes! It's amazing how fast time goes by. I wanted to post a picture of him as a baby and a recent one, but no digital pics 14 years ago! So here's my 14 year old.

Christmas goodies

The girls and I spent hours baking cookies and then delivered them to some friends from church. Each of us chose one or two kinds of cookies/bars. We ended up with 5 different treats to put on the plates. I hope this becomes a tradition! I've been wanting to have a whole day to bake Christmas cookies, but haven't ever done it. It's a lot of work, but also enjoyable. The boys are going out of town this weekend (to Las Vegas for a bowl game) and I'm hoping to spend this Saturday scrapbooking/paper crafting with the girls.

changes

I'm trying to figure out which template I want for my blog. Please excuse the changes that you will be seeing for the next few days! Decisions, decisions. I really like the way the pictures are lined up on this one, but I'm not crazy about the way the title looks. Maybe I'll mess around with the font and colors.

Ahhh, Monday

Today was my day off, so I got quite a bit done. I'm almost done shopping. Now I've got to do some crafting to finish up some gifts and get them wrapped/mailed. Oh, and Christmas cards still need to be written. Dallin's birthday is on Sunday and I did finish that shopping. It's also my dad's birthday on Sunday so I need to get a little gift in the mail to him. That should probably be done no later than Wednesday. Tomorrow is the Relief Society (women's group at church) progressive dinner. After work I'll be preparing some kind of side dish to bring. Hmmmmm...better make a decision quick! I'm thinking scalloped potatoes. It's late and I'm tired (and getting more and more tired thinking about what I need to do this week!). Good night everyone!

Love to look at these!

Hope you enjoy these. The light colored wooden cut-out one is from Germany. It had these little lights between two identical wooden cut-outs. Beautiful! There is a sweet little one made from clay and then a fabric one. I also loved the Louisiana bayou one. Adorable and very creative!
I'm still behind on my Christmas stuff. I think David and I will go shopping this weekend or the beginning of next week. The girls and I will be making cookies and watching Christmas movies on Saturday. I think it's supposed to be raining, so that will be perfect! Well, not as perfect as snow, but it will do.

creche pics

Sorry about the blurry pictures! I'll be going again tomorrow night and hopefully I can get some better pictures.

Creche's from around the world

A few decorations around my house. I made the advent calendar from a Making Memories kit I bought at Target. The trees are styrofoam cones covered in Christmas scrapbooking paper. I love the circle one. I just punched circles out of the paper and attatched them with a dressmakers pin in the middle. I added ribbon at the top and bottom of all three trees. The stars are chipboard that I painted white and then sprinkled with white glitter. There is a little nativity scene in the middle cubbie of the black coat rack/bench (below). I think I need a poinsetta in place of the plant in the red pot. Our tree is tiny, but looks good in our tiny place. It's artificial and already has the lights on it. We can put it up and get it decorated in about 15 minutes :) And the good thing about an artificial tree is no pine needles. Oh, and no spiders crawling out of it!

I took a ton of photos at the Community Christmas Celebration. I'll try to post some each day, so you can see lots and lots of them! There were creches from all over the world and they were amazing. My battery died part way through so I think I'll go back tomorrow night and get some more photos. I want to make a mini scrapbook with the pics.

Help, please

Does anyone know if I can put a new "banner" at the top of my blog for the holiday season? Is that just an option if you are paying for blog space? I want to make it look more festive, so I've changed the colors to red, green and pink, but it needs more! Anyone?
I'm reorganizing my scrap stuff today. It would probably be a good idea to actually scrap, but nooooo. I've got this idea that once I get everything organized the "right" way, I'll scrap more. We'll see. My plan is to make my Christmas cards this weekend. I've got some gifts to work on and design team stuff that I need to get done. But instead of scrapping, I think I'll organize! Go figure!
From 2:30-5:30 this afternoon, I'm going to be at our church greeting people that come to a Creche Display. This is the first full December we've been here, but apparently this is something our Stake (geopgraphical area that our members live in) has done for the last 15 years and it's well attended by the community. There are hundreds of creche's from all over the world displayed and lots of musical numbers performed by members and non-members of the church. I think we will be visiting it as a family tomorrow (Sunday) night. I guess I'll try to finish up with my organization project so I can go for a run. That's another thing I've got on my list today. I like to go for a run and have Lauren and Sara ride their bikes with me.
Oh, and before I go, some exciting news! (No, we aren't having another baby!) It rained all day yesterday and into the night last night/this morning! Yeah! We really, really needed that rain. I don't know how much it was, but it was a lot for around here!