Christmas Lights and Cookies

I had big plans for December. It was going to be a month filled with crafts and fun activities leading up to Christmas. But all of that went down the drain due to a bad cold and chest infection that wiped me out from Thanksgiving until right before Christmas. Added to that was a week of the most excruciating back pain and spasms I have ever had that all I could do was sit in my bed reading or watching TV (and of course David was gone for several days of that unbelievable experience!). We did do a few fun seasonal things, like one night grabbing peppermint shakes from Chick-Fil-A and driving around looking at the Christmas lights...

and of course we just had to make Christmas cookies again! Thank goodness I have the best cookie frosters around!

YW Christmas Party

A few days before Christmas we had a fun Christmas party with our young women. First they did a snowman craft!

It was super easy and all the little snowmen turned out so cute!

We then did a mixture of games, trivia questions, and singing carols. The first game was which team can blow up balloons, stuff them in the pantyhose, and put the "antlers" on your head while singing the first verse to "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" first?

Savannah rocked it! Her team won that one!

Another game was make a Christmas tree out of cups...

this one ended in a tie

due to lots of mishaps!!!

Everyone loves the 'get the cookie from your forehead to your mouth' game!

Takes quite a bit of skill to make this happen!

Hilarious group shot!

Our final game was a 'snowball' toss. Those marshmellows were sticky!

I think the girls had a great time; I know the leaders most definitely did!

The Christmas Bone

We love all the missionaries that serve in our ward but every once in awhile a closer relationship develops which is definitely what happened with Elders Benson and Anderson. I'll never forget the first Sunday Elder Anderson was at church and bore his testimony of two certainties - he said that wherever you go in this world, whenever you enter a ward building, you see the same ugly couches in the foyer and you find the true gospel of Jesus Christ is being taught. It was pretty funny! And Elder Benson was so quiet the first time he came to dinner but then once he became a little more comfortable his sarcastic, witty personality shone through and that was it! These two guys were just so awesome and we absolutely adored them!
At the ward Trunk or Treat activity - Elder Anderson was Inspector Gadget!

Noah with his two buddies!

I always apologized to them for never having dessert when they came for dinner so one night for their lesson to us they had us look up a scripture in Ether that talks about deseret...but as Elder Anderson read it he changed the word to dessert. They thought they were so sly! Now we'll never read Ether 2:3 without thinking of them.

Selfies at the ward Christmas party! They loved to grab Noah for the goofy pictures!

We had signed up to have them spend Christmas dinner with us but the week before Christmas we all got the sad news - they were both being transferred!!! David refers to this as "The Christmas Bone". To say we were all devastated is an understatement! The Monday before they got transferred we had them over for dinner one last time. Of course we had to take lots of pictures.

They brought us a huge dog bone along with a card that said "The Christmas Bone 2015. We love you!"

I always referred to Elder Anderson as Darren Downer because of his somewhat Eeyore attitude in life and he always teased me that we would forget about him as soon as he was gone and I would erase all the pictures of them. However, despite his dire predictions, he and Elder Benson will always hold a special place in our hearts and we have now immortalized them in our family blog!

Decorating the Tree

After Christmas last year David and I decided it would be nice to have a fake Christmas tree to put up in the family room; not to replace the live Christmas tree we get every year for the front room but to spread some Christmas cheer throughout more of the house. Well, thank goodness we picked one up because this year David and I were both too sick to feel up to going out and getting a live tree and then going through the hassle of setting it up. That little fake tree saved us this year and the kids didn't even mind that we didn't have a tree in the front room.
The kids dove into decorating it with gusto!

They always have a great time reviewing ornaments from the past.

I remember Savannah's excitement over this atrocious pink ornament she chose when she was 3 or 4 years old; now she's as puzzled over its appeal as I was all those years ago.

Savannah pops up all over the place!

Xander helped David put out our nativity.

All done with the decorating.

But not quite done being silly!

David's face is priceless!

The zombie eyes made a comeback!

Noah's turn to put the moose at the top.

He wasn't even scared this time.

Our house is finally ready for Christmas!

Christmas Party

Our ward Christmas Party was a lot of fun! I think we were most excited about the fact that due to our small ward size we were able to eat dinner like in the good 'ole days. The bishopric served the ward members although the Relief Society president did lend a hand with cutting the ham.

These two rascals waiting their turn for the food.

The dinner was tasty - ham, green bean casserole, baked potatoes, salad, and rolls.

Xander's favorite little buddy, cute Gage. Despite appearances Gage really does adore Xander.

There was a selfie booth set up and we all had a blast posing!

Savannah and the other youth were split into two teams and sent on a scavenger hunt to find different things, take pictures of certain people, and perform certain acts. This particular moment was when they had to "rock around the Christmas tree". Even Elder Deardon showed off his boogie skills!

Can you believe it? This was the only picture I got of any of my kids with Santa! Xander wasn't feeling well and Noah didn't make it through the line before we had to leave for Savannah's soccer game.

A few last selfies before we left - Noah with our favorite elders...

and me with my love.

Had to take advantage of that mistletoe!