The little things

(pictures of us at our home)

Sledding in a winter wonderland

We went sledding today to kind of celebrate winter and the new year. we drove up to Idaho city (or thereabouts) and enjoyed the cold beautiful weather.
I admit to not getting any pictures of the actual sledding but her are some pics of right after.

Christmas Eve

We started Christmas Eve by cleaning because Santa wont come to a dirty house, after the cleaning was almost done my sister Jessica came over and helped me mop my sad looking kitchen floor. Thank you Jessica!

We spent the afternoon at my Grandparents house for the Christmas Party. What good times. I love getting to see family we don't see that often (and seeing the family we do see often) all in one place. We ate delicious food and visited with everyone. Then we had the talent show, I remember the days when I was a participant. This year Grandma asked me to lead everyone is song. I picked Silent Night and shared the story of that song with everyone before we sang the first verse together.   I love that song it always reminds me of the Birth of our Savior. 

After the talent show and singing we all participated in the white Elephant gift exchange, we got a Santa clause pezz dispenser (so awesome). Then grandma and grandpa gave their gifts to everyone one. They are SO generous and Kind. I love them! We left our gifts for them under the tree so they could open them on Christmas.

Then we headed home for our family festivities.

* The remainder of this post was originally posted on my other blog* This is just the part of the post I thought family would want to see, to view the whole thing (if you want) go to the blog listed below:

https://growuphill.wordpress.com/

https://growuphill.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/christmas-eve/

......

Our menu was simple this year because we had a big extended family party at 2 in the afternoon so we didn't need a big ham.

Baked chicken

Scalloped potatoes

broiled broccoli

For dessert:

Homemade hot coco (using this mix recipe)  and whipped cream

strawberry ice cream

sugar cookies

I made the table fun for the kids using kid-friendly decor items. I sprinkled around Christmas colored pom poms and used wrapping paper instead of chargers and streamers for the bows on the chairs.

     

I also made these cute snowmen for nameplates!

The evening began with the DIY Christmas poppers/crackers and then dinner. After dinner we read the grateful for notes from the 3 kings jar, read the Christmas story and then we had dessert. We had the candles in our ice cream that I talked about in a previous post and after all the meal was done we sat down to enjoy the rest of our hot coco as we watched one of my favorite movies: Its a Wonderful Life.

What a wonderful day it was!

The kids wore the PJ'S they got from Grandma to bed for Christmas eve. 

Party

Our Christmas Party was last night
Thank you to all of you who came ! I hope you had a good time despite the many shortcomings!
Thank you to Slovieg and Levi, Rylee, Tyler and Ameila, Kara, Ella, Izzy, Oliver and Hank, Lynette and Shelby and Mom and Joseph!
Thank you Mitchell for helping clean the house! Thank you boys for letting mommy cook all day!
Thank you Rylee for helping me make the popcorn Balls
The Party was so much fun for me that I forgot to take any pictures- total fail!
The decorating was a lot of fun and I think it all looked very nice. I spent all wednesday night and Thursday day baking cake and pie and cookies and putting together other goodies and  I think the food turned out well also- except the hot chocolate was a great misfortune-worst part I kept thinking I should set out water and cocoa for new hot chocolate but i never did!  A big Hostess no-no. Next time I  will remember!
But I got a few after the party when Eli helped me clean up. I am glad we had that party and we hope to do one again next year!
A few Pictures!