New Year, New You

With the beginning of a new year, I decided I needed to make a change.  I have been growing my hair out for a long time.  I was finally tired of having it so long, so I finally decided to get it cut.  Here you can see how long my hair was.

Here is what my hair looks like now:

I love having it shorter.  It is so much easier. It has so much more of a shape and feels so much lighter.

Happy New Year!!!

Since Jon had to work for New Year's Eve, I went to Grandview to ring in the new year with my family.  We just had a family party where we got out all kinds of snacks and played games.  Darin brought his girlfriend Christy to meet the family.  It was really fun to meet her.

We had a wonderful Dinner on New Year's Day.  It was so fun to spend so much time with our family.    It's hard to believe another year has come and gone.  It seems time just moves faster and faster the older I get.  This is always the time of year when I reflect on my life in the last year.This year has been a great year, but has not come without its challenges.  However, those challenges have brought Jon and me closer together with our Savior. As I look back on the last year, I see so many blessings in my life.  The Lord has truly blessed me and my family.  I am so grateful I can see those blessings, and I am grateful that the Lord is always willing to bless me for my righteousness.  We wish everyone a Happy New Year!!!

It's hard to believe it's been ONE year!!!

Jon and I had our 1 year anniversary on December 31st.  Because Jon had to work on our Anniversary, we celebrated it by going out to dinner on the Saturday before.  Jon surprised me and took me to the Carousel French Cuisine Restaurant.  It was sooo good.

Jon had a delicious Filet Minon

I had stuffed Chicken Breast

Both of our dinners were so good.  We even treated ourselves to Shirley Temples.  They were good. 

A delicious chocolate and caramel parfait for dessert

Thanks Jon for a wonderful night.

On December 31, before Jon went to work and I went down to my parents' house for the holiday, we did have dinner and then we got out our cake top from our wedding cake.  I was a little leery to try it, because I have heard so many people say that their cake tasted really gross after the first year, but we decided to give it a try anyway.  Turned out it wasn't so bad.  It was actually delicious!!!  I am so glad I wrapped it so good.  Thanks Jenna for making us such a great tasting cake. :)

Happy Anniversary Jon.  It's hard to believe we have been through one year.  I love you more now than I did when we first got married.  I can hardly wait to celebrate the next 10, 20, 30 years with you.  I look forward to spending the rest of eternity with you.  I love you.

Merry Christmas!!

This year for Christmas we spent it down in Grandview with my parents.  We were able to go down around lunchtime on Christmas eve. That afternoon we made gingerbread houses with Lisa's family.  They were spending most of their Christmas with Jaime's parents, so they came in the afternoon to build gingerbread houses.  I helped grandma build her very first gingerbread house.  We had so much fun.  It is always fun to see the finished products.

Thanks Lisa and Jaime for building these with us.

The kids all love to play with their Uncle Jon.  Jon likes to play with them just as much. :)

For Christmas Eve we did our traditional Family Home Evening.  We had a talent show and read the Christmas story to remind us all of the real reason we celebrate Christmas.  This is one of my favorite things to do.  I look forward to this every Christmas.  This is a tradition I will carry on in my own family.

Jon and I sang the song "Were you there"

Grandma asked if Lori and I would sing Star of the East with her.  We gladly accepted.

Mom played a beautiful Christmas Medley on the Piano.  It was beautiful and brought the spirit in so strong.

My dad read the Christmas Story out of the Bible in Luke 2.  We sang songs in between verses.  Lori and I switched off playing the piano for each song.  After we were done reading the Christmas Story, we heard some wonderful testimonies from Grandma and Grandpa.  It was so great to be able to hear them testify of the Divinity of the Savior, and their feelings on the Birth of Jesus Christ.  I could feel the spirit testify to me that what they were saying was true.  I'm so grateful to them for their testimony.

After we were done, My dad asked me to play some Christmas songs while we all sang around the piano.  We were surprised to hear sleigh bells.  As I stopped playing who did I behold?  None other than Santa Claus.

Santa gave us all a box of Chocolate Covered Cherries!  Yummy!

I saw Grandma Kissing Santa Claus

I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

So I thought I should give it a try :)

Then Grandma had 1 more turn

It was so fun to have Santa visit.  It brought back so many memories of when I was a little girl and the fun times we had at Christmas.

Christmas morning brought surprises all around.  Christmas morning Jon was excited with what Santa brought him.  As was I.  We had a great time opening gifts with the family.  I always like to see what everyone gets.  Here are a few highlights.

Jon wasn't quite awake when I started taking pictures.  I did make his pajamas for him.  He got to open those on Christmas Eve.

Mom and Dad both got guns for Christmas.  They went shooting the next weekend.

Grandma got her first coat in years.

Grandpa got an Ipad!!!

I am so grateful for this wonderful Christmas season.  I am so grateful for the Birth of Jesus Christ.  I am so grateful for his atonement and for the knowledge I have of the Plan of Salvation.  Jon and I had such a great Christmas and we look forward to many wonderful Christmases to come.  Merry Christmas to all.  

Christmas Light Tour

December 22nd, Jon and I decided to go and look at Christmas lights for our date night. We looked in the paper for a map where the Christmas lights were, but as we were looking, we noticed that it would just be easier to drive around. So we drove around and just looked at lights. We found one street where there was so much we had to stop the car and get out. It was so cool.

After driving around for a while, we stopped at Jon's sister's house.  Doug and Darla started talking to us about some really cool places to go.  So we got into their car and they took us out to this place in Union Gap where they decorate everything. It is really cool.  They have Santa and an Elf there, and they serve hot chocolate and candy to everyone that comes by.  It is amazing and something that isn't that well known.  They have so many lights, this was another place we had to get out of the car to check out.  I even took some video for you all to enjoy.  

So it turns out I can only download pictures and I only took video except for this one picture of Jon.  However my family did get to see the videos at Christmas.  This will definitely be a place we hit every year. I will know for next time that I need to just do pictures.  We had so much fun.  Doug and Darla then took us out to Selah where there is a house that has the lights connected to song.  They had this dog that sang, a guitar playing Santa, and the entire house was decorated in lights.  It kind of reminded me of the house in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.    It was really cool.  We were so glad to be able to get together with Jon's Sister and go see lights.   They even treated us to frozen yogurt.  It was such a great night.  Thanks Doug and Darla for all the fun.