New year, new snow, new pantry!

It's no mystery that I love the snow!  I loved waking up to it on Christmas day and I was thrilled every time it snowed after that. We had a couple of days that the flakes were so huge, I can't even describe them!  And couldn't get a good picture of them either.  But it always looks so peaceful when it's snowing.  And I love the snow sitting on the bare trees.  We are blessed to have Nate here, he shovels the walk and the driveway and even scrapes our car windows for us some mornings.  What a blessing!  One new year goal I got done right away was to organize my pantry.  It is a mess!  I hired my sweet friend Christi Judd (Delight Organizing) to help me.  First of all, we discovered a mouse had been in the pantry.  OOOH!!!  I was not happy about that!  So I had to pull everything out and CLEAN.  So I had done that before Christi ever came to measure things. So it was semi-organized...but she had great ideas of what we needed to do to make it organized.  She came back a week later with all the bins, shelves, and lazy susan to make it work!  She had it done in about 30 minutes!  So much room in there and it looks so good!  I was thrilled.  Hope we can keep it organized and CLEAN.  And NO MICE!!  One day I was working on my menu and Lilly helped me fill it in.  She apparently LOVES Ravioli. ha ha.

New Year's Eve and Day

 Dave and I rode the train up to Salt Lake for the Jazz game.  So exciting!  They were playing the Phoenix Suns.  We were HUGE Phoenix Suns fans back in the day (20 years ago!). We had wanted to go to a game to see Eric do the fire bursts.  But he wasn't doing it that night, bummer. Had some fireworks to do somewhere.  We loved our view and we loved the fire bursts when they announced the players.  It was a fun game!  Very exciting and the Suns made the Jazz work for it, but the Jazz did end up winning.  I had posted this first picture on Facebook when we arrived at the arena and a friend from high school back in Mesa commented that she had almost the same view!  They were up here for a grandbaby blessing and their son got them all tickets for this game.  She said she thought she saw me and to look over a couple of sections and she would stand up and wave.  There she was!  Sissy Blackburn Rosenhan!  What are the odds?  She came over at halftime and we chatted for a couple of minutes.  I didn't even think to take a picture!  Anyway, It's been over 30 years since I have seen her!  Dave and I really enjoyed the game.  Thanks Eric and Randa for the tickets!  We caught the train back home and were home before 10 p.m.  Nate was nice enough to go outside and light off some fireworks for us.  We all watched from inside.  It was still snowy and cold.  Thanks Nate!  Happy New Year!  New year's day we went to church, it was a nice quiet day.  The one day we were glad for the late church schedule.  ha ha.  There was game playing and just spending time together.  We are ready for 2017!!

Christmas puzzling...

It's been tradition since I was a child for Santa to bring us a puzzle.  We like them so much that usually someone gives us a puzzle or two as well.  Lilly got this cute little puzzle from Jacob that you put together and then color.  She loved it. She didn't need a lot of help, but it was fun working on it with her.  Then we worked on our Santa puzzle, a cute cat on a bookshelf puzzle.  All the book titles were cat titles.  It was really cute.  My kind of puzzle! We started it Christmas Day and finished it the next day pretty much.  THEN, there was a puzzle that Ashley sent us...ALL SILVER! WHAT?? NOT my kind of puzzle.  Amanda insisted that we do it so she and Dave got it started.  I helped a little once they got it going.  There was no way to do it without following the guide which showed which shape of piece went where.  We did finally finish it...but it took several days!  Never. Again. I got a puzzle after Christmas from Teri Stringham, it is an Eric Dowdle puzzle and very cute.  My kind of puzzle. We will do that one sometime when we have enough time to get another puzzle out.  The last picture is a picture and not that Lilly drew for me during church on Christmas day.  No pressure for learning to play that flue now!  ha ha.   

Christmas 2016

We woke up to a White Christmas!  So pretty!  I LOVE it!  Santa did indeed come and we had a fun morning opening presents.  Grandpa passed out the gifts like he always does.  Joel was waiting with the video camera to take video when the kids came in.  The opened their stockings first and they got some Pokemon cards so they were busy and happy with that and didn't even seem to care about all the gifts waiting to be opened!  It was pretty funny.  They did eventually see what else Santa brought and opened their presents.  Santa brought me a flute!  I have always wanted to learn to play the flute.  We will see what happens!  The boys left with Dale before lunch time to go to the airport.  They left early since the snow sometimes has a way of messing things up.  Their flight was delayed a bit, but we heard they made it to Georgia safely.  We went to church just for Sacrament meeting, all other meetings were cancelled.  It was a lovely meeting, beautiful music and good speakers. And the first time I have ever heard announced over the pulpit, "The Sacrament was prepared today with bottled water."  What a lovely Christmas day.  Merry Christmas!

 

Christmas Eve Dinner

Christmas Eve was very interesting this year.  Jacob was still sick, though not throwing up thankfully!  Lilly had come home from her mom's this morning after having thrown up so they were both banished to their bedrooms where they slept most of the day.  I informed Eric's family that they were sick but they said they would come anyway. The OTHER issue we had, is Lindon City Water had reports of E coli in the water.  This had been going on for a little over a week.  So making Christmas Eve dinner with bottled water was quite a challenge.  We managed it though!  Nate smoked us a turkey and we had all the trimmings.  It was delicious!  Then since we wouldn't be seeing Eric's family on Christmas, we let them open their presents from us.  I think Jackson and Carson loved their Superman and Batman towels and Legos.  Makayela loved her mermaid tail and sea shell locket, and Kai loved his Harry Potter wand, candy, and T-shirt, he turned when I tried to take the picture! He was holding up the shirt, it says, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."  Eric and Randa liked their gifts too - rope lighting, gift cards, a Christmas decoration, and a book.  Eric and Randa gave me and Dave a pair of tickets to the Jazz game on New year's eve!  We have never been to a professional basketball game!  They gave Amanda's family a set of fireworks for New Year's.  We enjoyed our visit and it was just a very nice evening.  We felt bad for Jacob and Lilly missing out on it, but we really needed them to get better!  The boys are going on a plane to Georgia with Dale tomorrow!  Praying for Jacob to feel well and David to not get sick!  Now to get all in bed so Santa can come!  The kids got star wars pajamas for Christmas Eve!  

Temple Square Lights adventure

On Friday Barbara came over to spend some time with us.  It was fun having her here and she helped Amanda with a sewing project so that was fun.  After she left we got ready to head to the train station to go to Temple Square.  Barbara, along with John and April and some of their grandkids were going to meet us there.  Dave had to work late so didn't make it.  I was sad about that.  We drove through Wendy's and got some dinner to eat on the train.  As we were driving along Jacob said his stomach hurt.  Amanda took him to the bathroom but he still wasn't feeling any better.  By the time we got off the train and onto the trax, he threw up.  It was all over him and the bench.  We felt terrible for him (and for whoever has to clean up the trax!) Some ladies across the aisle had wet wipes which we borrowed to clean him up as best we could and threw it all in with our bag of extra gloves and hats. Ick. We got off at Temple Square and went into the visitor's center.  Amanda took Jacob in the restroom to try and clean him up and Nate ran across the street to buy him some clean clothes and a sweatshirt (it was a bit chilly!).  Joel and I took David out and we walked around to see some of the lights and we met up with John and April and Barbara.  My favorites are still the red trees by Assembly Hall.  We took a few pictures and then we left to catch the next train home.  It was a short visit to Temple Square!  But it was beautiful.  Poor Jacob.  He slept all the way home and we lugged the garbage bag full of throw up stuff with us.  What an adventure!  ha.  

Christmas is in the air!

We had a wonderful ward Christmas dinner and program.  There were lights everywhere and different names of Christ on every table.  It was beautiful.  It was breakfast casseroles and yummy cinnamon rolls, things the kids would eat. Win Win.  The program was beautiful and we loved it all. The lights and the manger were beautiful. A great way to begin the Christmas Season.  

For the first time ever, I think I got my Christmas shopping done early in the month.  A trip down to Rowley's Red Barn was my last stop to get my Grandma's honey candy (that her nieces make and sell).  We bought a few other yummy candies too! I love being done with my shopping! It was a fun little jaunt to the Red Barn.  

 Dave's mom flew into town. John took her and Dave to a BYU basketball game.  I told Dave to get me a Cougartail and he did!  Yummy! We will do some things while Barbara is in town.

December is here!

David drew this cute family picture.  Complete with the "going to be baby" saying Wah.  One night we came home from the grocery store and there were fire engines, ambulances, police cars, Rocky Mountain Electric truck and a Questar gas truck. Two houses up (we don't know the occupants) there was apparently a basement fire.  We learned at church later (they are in our ward, but we don't know who they are) that the fire was started by a soldering iron that got tipped over.  No one was hurt, thankfully but a lot of damage I guess.  Scary!  Zander is still as cute as ever.  He loves books and he now loves to sit in the drawer of books to read them!  He also loves to help me do the laundry!  He reaches clear in to get the wash and move it into the dryer.  What a helper!  And since it IS December, I finally got around to making some new ornaments for my count down to Christmas tree.  A few of the ornaments (I made these over 30 years ago!) were quite outdated and we couldn't even really tell what they were, so I made some new ones.  I like them and I think the kids will too.  Time to get everything ready for Christmas.  Deck the halls and all that!  Happy December!