Birthday Party for Jesus!

This year we had our "Birthday party for Jesus" on an Sunday night. We made homemade chicken cordon blue, fancy corn, mashed potatoes and gravy, and strawberry spinach salad. Dad was great to talk to us about always making the Savior the center of our Christmas. We wrote down things from this past year that we felt like we had done for Him. This is a loved tradition that I hope will continue for many years to come!

Merry CHRISTmas!!

Gingerbread Houses

Our favorite Christmas tradition!! Gingerbread houses! This year Kade decided he was too old and too cool to decorate a Gingerbread house. He was however, not too old or cool to steal lots of candy to eat!! Kira and Kate joined us in the fun. The girls eat way to much sugar and make awesome houses each year.

ps...not sure why my beautiful face is in a stamp on the pictures! One day maybe I'll learn how to use the camera on my phone!!

Neighborhood Christmas Party!

We hosted the Neighborhood Christmas Party this year! Wow! So many people!! Even with our big room, it was standing room only. We have such an amazing neighborhood. Every year we have a get together on a Sunday night where everyone brings a treat/snack to share. We all bring the money that we would have spent on giving each other little neighbor gifts, and place it in a donation box. The money is given to the Bishop so he can give it to those who need it that year. I know from serving as the Relief Society President of our ward for the past 3 years, that this money is needed and put to good use. People are so generous and it is amazing to see the support given and the money that is collected. It was a great night.

Service Club!

This year Quincy started a service club! Chris told her of a story that he read in the New Era about a group of girls that get together once a month and perform a service for someone. They talked about it and Quincy agreed that it would be fun to get the girls together in our neighborhood and start their own service club. We figured that there were 13 girls from the ages of 9-12. She made invitations and her and Brinley delivered them. They had their first meeting in November. They decorated sugar cookies and made 5 plates of cookies that they delivered to people in our ward. 6 girls came to the first meeting.

In December the girls met and tied 2 fleece blankets that would be donated to a homeless shelter. They did such a great job. It was a little bit hard but they stuck with it and finished both blankets in about an hour. This time 10 girls came!

They have a date in January set up and some fun ideas of projects to do. I think it's turning into a great thing for these girls to do together. I know it makes them feel good to be doing something for someone else! That's a great life lesson to learn!

Kylee's first patient!!

Dad was Kylee's first ever Dental Hygiene patient! She has to find her own patients to come and get their teeth cleaned in the clinic at Weber State. Dad was kind and offered to be her first patient. She looks so official! 

Quincy's Choir Concert

Quincy is our singer! She has a great voice and my favorite thing ever is to listen to her sing in the shower! She puts on quite a concert in there! 

This was her Christmas Choir Concert at ACYI in 7th grade.

Decorating the Christmas Tree!

Decorating a real tree, especially proved to be much more difficult than we thought! We learned quickly that we needed to wire the lights to each and every branch! It took a LONG time to get the lights on. We were pretty excited to get to the decorating part. For the first time in 17 years...we had new Christmas tree decorations! Yay! Kylee and Emilee did a great job getting all of the decorations on and looking great. The finished product was worth all of the time spent.

We are ready for the Christmas Holiday Season!!

"Hunting for the perfect Christmas tree" by Quincy!

The day after Thanksgiving we drove from Grandpa and Grandma Southwick's home in Rexburg and went to Ashton, Idaho to find and cut down our Christmas tree! This was a first for us and we LOVED it! So so much fun! 

This is what Quincy wrote about it...

"On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, we set out to find the perfect Christmas tree. Grandma Southwick payed $15.00 for us to cut down our very own Christmas tree. It was our first time ever cutting down a Christmas tree, so we didn't really know what we were looking for. We drove for about an hour to get to a big mountain that we hiked up. When we finally made it to the top, we walked around for probably aout 10 minutes. Then we saw a tree that we thought was just perfect for what we needed! We took a picture of us and the tree, then we chopped it down. We had Kylee drag the tree down the mountain, and the rest of us slik on our bottoms. Kara, our 5 year old cousin, was scared to go down the mountain...so Emilee took her on her lap, and they went down the hill together. When they got to the bottom, Kara said it wasn't as scary as she thought it would be, and that it was actually kind of fun! As Dad and Uncle Dan were strapping the tree to the trailer, Quincy, Brinley and Lily found some black ice, and started Ice skating around the parking lot. We kept slipping and falling, but it was super fun! After we got the tree on the trailer, we drove to warm springs. We got there and there were lots of big fish. The reason shy there were lots was because you were not alloud to fish there. After awhile a little family came with 4 rolls. They threw them to the fish, and we saw a lot of big ones. As they were leaving, we told them Thank You for bringing the rolls, and then went back to Grandma's house. 

Extra info:

- The tree had lots of spider sacs that we had to get out.

- We saw people who had a really good tree, so we asked them where they got it, and they said, "up the hill".

- At the top of the mountain there was an old ski lift and other buildings for the resort that didn't work anymore.