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.



Date Nights

Jon and I try to have a date night every week.  Most of our date nights consist of us staying home and watching a movie, or going to the mall and just walking around.  However occassionally, we have some really fun dates where I try to do something special.  In April, I got a picnic together and took Jon to the park.  It was a warm and beautiful day.  He loved the food and the idea of having a picnic.

 

 

 

In May, my parents let me borrow their condo here in town. So I invited Jon to a "Winter Wonderland" prom. I went early and decorated the condo with decorations we had from the wedding. I cooked him a wonderful dinner. It was a three course dinner with Salad, Roasted Chicken and Red Garlic Potatoes. For dessert I made him a cherry cheesecake. It was all so good. He arrived in his suit, while I was in a beautiful dress and we danced to songs we played at the wedding. It was so fun to do something different

 

 

 

 

 

Another really fun date we had was in October. I asked my sister Lori if she would be willing to make up some clues so that Jon and I could go on a Scavenger Hunt. She thought up some great clues that took us around the area. Our final destination was home. When we got home we had a surprise by the door. My sister had gotten us Sparkling Cider, a nice scented candle, and a plate of chocolate covered pretzels and fudge for us to enjoy.  At each clue there was a little puzzle piece.  When we got home we put the puzzle together.  It was a picture from our first blog post.  Thanks Lori for all your help. :)

 



 

 

Ugly Sweater Party

On December 8th we hosted an Ugly Sweater party.  We had so much fun.  We invited three other couples to enjoy the time with us.  We had a potluck dinner so that we would be able to visit and get to know one another better.  We had the Bishop and his wife, Lavon, David and Corrine, and Jake and Stephanie.  Jake and Stephanie are a new couple in the ward and it was nice to be able to get to know them better.  I worked with Lavon and Corrine in the Primary.  Jon didn't get the chance to be there for dinner because he was working at a game, but he was able to be there for a half an hour before everyone left.

All of us at the Ugly Sweater Party. 

We had so much fun, we may make this an annual event.  Thanks to everyone for joining us in the fun.

Thanksgiving

 

The next Holiday we got to celebrate was Thanksgiving.  This year we spent Thanksging with Jon's family.  They all came down to Yakima and we had dinner at Jon's sister Darla's house.  It was fun to see Jon's family and visit.  We had a good time eating and playing games.  There were a lot of us there.  Thanks everyone for coming down to Yakima.  Jon and I had a great time.

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!  Thanks for such a great time.  We enjoyed having you all visit.

Halloween

I love this time of year. When it is starting to get crisp outside. Perfect sweater weather. It is also great because we get to celebrate so many holidays. The first of the holdiays is Halloween. We had such a blast for Halloween this year. We decided we were going to have a Halloween party. So to prepare we really decked out the house this year.

 

We tied up Frankenstien

 

 



 

 

The witch ran into the door

 

 

Oh No!!!! We have a dead body in the yard!!

 

 

 

 

We put in several tombstones in the yard

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Pinterest I got this great idea to put bats across the window.  It looked so great.  We did get our pumpkin carved.  We were so busy we didn't actually get it done until the night of Halloween.  But we got it done.

 

After all the decorations were done, we invited a couple of families in the ward to come over for a Halloween party.  We had lots of fun with them.  We had a costume contest and some games for the kids, then of course, we had some great food.  Thanks everyone for coming.

 

 

He's the old man from UP