Christmas Time....

I've been horrible at blogging these days, but I have many good excuses. (I'll spare you on what my brother, Matt, says about excuses- it's not good though).

NUMERO UNO- My husband has been gone for the past 10 days- he gets home tomorrow (yay), so we haven't been doing anything fun together as a family.
2. I feel like the only thing I've been doing lately is Christmas shopping, wrapping and cleaning,and who wants to hear about that?!?
3. It has been snowing like crazy here. I love watching the snow fall, but I hate having to drive in it- especially now that I have T. man riding with me.
I do love to ski in it though and I'm hoping JC reads this post and realizes how badly I want to go skiing with him- SOON:-)

ANYWAY- here are a few things I can blog about.

1. I went to the Festival of Trees here in Utah for the first time. My sweet neighbor, Kristen, invited me to go with some other friends from the neighborhood and I really enjoyed looking at all of the different Christmas trees. Many of the trees were dedicated to people who had passed away and others were dedicated to people diagnosed with a serious illness. The money that was made from this event was donated to the Children's Hospital in Salt Lake.

While we were there, we took our kids to see Santa. Tucker was not a fan. This picture breaks my heart. I'm a horrible mother. Did I need a picture that bad?!?

I loved this tree. Very creative. My brother-in-law, Jason, would appreciate this one.

2. I love my neighbors and my neighborhood. When I began thinking about what I was going to do for neighbors' gifts this year, I became a little overwhelmed. That's when I opened my front door and saw a flyer explaining the annual neighborhood gift giving party. Instead of giving gifts to our neighbors, a couple in the neighborhood hosts a party and people bring the money they would spend on neighbors' gifts and donate that money to the Children's Hospital in Salt Lake. I LOVE this!!! I think every neighborhood should do something similar.

3. Our friends Brett and Kelly just had their baby boy- Jayden. He is an angel!
This is JC holding Jayden.


3. My second attempt to get Tucker to warm up to Santa didn't turn out as I had hoped. We went out to eat with Gimi and Pa for Pa's birthday and then we all went over to the mall to take pictures of the cousins with Santa in their matching pajamas Cyd made for them.
I don't blame Tucker for being upset this time. This Santa was a little grumpy. I don't think he was the real Santa;-)

4. One of the many things I'm grateful for in this life is friendship and I can't even imagine my life if I hadn't met the sweet friends I made at BYU. Throughout my years in college, I was able to meet so many wonderful people and I've been blessed to still have a handful of them in my life. There is one group of girls I get together with each year for our annual Christmas party. We've been having these parties for about 10 years now and we are still going strong. We aren't lucky enough to have everyone there each year, but we do what we can. This year it was Ashlee, Anne, Becky and me. We missed everyone else so much. I know we have all moved on with our lives but I know that I will always have a place in my heart for these girls. They were my family when I was away from mine. I love them:-)

If I don't get another post in before the Holidays are over,
MERRY CHRISTMAS and/or Happy Hanukkah!!