The rest of the Weekend

We went to my cousin Mark and Monica's family farm the day after the wedding. 

We saw and held baby pigs...

and petted goats.

Emma's dreams also came true as she got to ride a pony and horse!

That night my mom, aunt and I went to the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert.  

I hadn't been in years and it was a great concert. The only downside was our parking ticket...

After we made it home from Utah we went to Scentsy headquarters to  see the lights. 

Wedding Day

December 14th was Kelli and Ian's wedding day!! These two have been dating for almost 2 years. They met at Ally's Pizza where they both worked (that's where I worked in high school too.)

It was a beautiful ceremony. Our former Stake President Larry Smith sealed them and he was amazing. He told them that their future children were surrounding the alter with them as they made their covenants. 

It was really cold waiting for Kelli and Ian to come out of the temple! We were all freezing (mostly due to the wind) despite how warm and sunny it looks.

The luncheon was catered by Olive Garden and it was delicious soup, salad and bread sticks!  

After the luncheon we went to the reception center to set up. My mom and aunts put a lot of work in to the decor and food. It looked beautiful! My contribution was arranging for my friend Jody to make the wedding cake which turned out beautiful!

They had doughnuts, cookies, and peanut butter bars for refreshments.

It was a beautiful reception filled with family, friends, and dancing! The whole day went off without any real problems. It was a great wedding day!

Christmas Concerts

December always means Christmas Concerts. First was Brooke's 4th grade concert. They sang a lot of fun Christmas songs.

The next day was Kaylee's orchestra concert. I was expecting it to sound pretty bad as they are all new to playing string instruments. It sounded surprisingly good though! 

Emma also had a preschool program but they all stood in front of a window and the pictures didn't turn out.

Austin's party

We had Austin's birthday party early in December before everyone got too busy with Christmas.  

He invited a couple friends to go to Urban Air for our last weekend with our free passes.

Will and Aaron came but poor Will only got to play for about 20 minutes before he had to leave for a basketball game.

That weekend we also went to a live nativity at a seventh day Adventist church. It was well done. I haven't been in a lot of other churches and it was interesting to see the same pictures as our church building and similar benches in their chapel. 

December

Emma and I made cinnamon tree ornaments. She had a great time cutting them out and our house smelled pretty amazing for a few days.

We had a paint night for our Beehive class. The girls all told us they couldn't do it and their picture wouldn't turn out but they all did great!

Emma is also an artist.  This is her cat picture.

We went to the Meridian light parade. It was better than I thought it would be and they gave out free hot chocolate. 

My favorite float was the Church's Light the World one. It was so pretty.

That same weekend we had our annual Grinch Feast. We invited the Larsen family and cooked turkey for the roast beast. I think the kids all had a good time.

Kaylee was asked to speak in church for the first time. She was not happy about it and gave Jake and I lots of attitude as we tried to help her write it. It took a lot of effort and patience from all of us but she ended up doing a great job. She didn't seem nervous and there was a huge crowd the  day she spoke for a missionary farewell. 

We also got some Sunday snow and the kids helped shovel the neighbors side walk and driveway to "light the world".

Jake's work party was Dec. 7- Santa and Mrs. Claus came for pictures.

This years movie was The Polar Express. It's not my favorite Christmas movie but it's always fun to be at the Egyptian theater and the kids love all the free candy and popcorn!