Welcome Twenty Eleven!

New Year's Eve was lots of fun this year. We invited mom and dad over to celebrate with us. We made the mistake of watching Marley and Me right before they arrived. So we were feeling a little melancholy, but the mood picked up quickly when we ate some of these . . . Frank's* famous ribs. Yum. I could almost lick my screen they look so good! It's not a party without a little Rockband! Frank* got the Beatles Rockband for Christmas and it's been so fun! I catch my girls singing Beatles songs now! We came out at midnight and made some noise. We were surprised how many neighbors came out to do the same. What a fun neighborhood! (o: It was FREEZING so this lasted about 45 seconds.

Sledding at Grandma's Hill

Just after Christmas, we got some pretty good snow. We heard grandma and grandpa had a good hill close to their house so we planned a spontaneous sledding party! Grandma and Grandpa and Lisa and Kelly and the kids came! It was the perfect hill and there was plenty of room. We had so much fun trying out the sleds Santa gave us. We had a blast and laughed our heads off - all the adults took turns, we tried making trains and we even did a few runs where grandpa counted and everyone came down at the same time! I love Anna's hot chocolate mustache in the picture above. What an awesome day! The girls loved this new winter activity! By the time we were done, we couldn't wait to warm up, but it was fun while it lasted. Sarah must have gone up and down at least 30 times. She was crazy! Cute Cameron! I love getting more time with my sweet nieces and nephews! Natalie was pooped by the end and just collapsed in the snow.

An Old Fashioned Christmas

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Mom had a fun idea to have a party with her family at Heritage Park where my sister works during Christmas and during the summer. It is such a neat park and just gorgeous at Christmas time! It's like stepping back in time. The park is dedicated to the early Utah pioneers and has a whole little village reminiscent of the times when they first arrived. Our party was in a beautiful and quaint building - it was so Christmas-y. (o: We had fabulous food, but even better company. This was the first time I got to see some of my extended family on my mom's side. It was wonderful to catch up and reunite with aunts, uncles and cousins I will get to see more often now that we are here! I was having so much fun visiting, we didn't really get to go out and see the park, but that's okay with me.

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Angela and my cousin's little boy, Izak are both in kindergarten. Cute second cousins. (is that right?)

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We were privileged to get our very own personal performance by Christine and her fellow Heritage Park carolers. They were wonderful! It's amazing how such a small group can sound so good acapella. Very impressive and fun! (Christine is on the left.)

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Angela got a big surprise when in the middle of "Up on the Housetop" the carolers got to the "Ho Ho HO - who wouldn't go?" part and then they kept asking, "Who wouldn't go? Was it you?" And Christine scooted right over to Angela, with the rest of the group right beside her and asked, "Was it you? Why wouldn't you go?"

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Angela just FROZE with all the attention drawn on her - it was hilarious! (o:

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My cute cous' Megan and uncle Mike. What a wonderful night and reunion!

December 27

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December is a very special day. It's the anniversary of the day I married my best friend, Clyde*. It's always a little crazy celebrating so quickly after Christmas, but it will be so much easier to celebrate living in Utah. Almost every year we lived in Oregon, we spent our anniversary traveling or hosting visitors for a Christmas visit. (Which was just fine with us!

Before we did our anniversary celebrating, I had a chance to meet up with two wonderful friends that I have known ever since I can remember. Stephanie and Emily. We've known each other since Kindergarten, I think. We went through high school together and have kept in touch all these years. The last time I saw Stephanie was when Sarah was a baby and she visited us in Portland. I think it's been longer since I've seen Emily, but we've e-mailed and kept in touch. We decided to get together while Steph was visiting from Washington. It's funny how good friends are so easy to just hang out with no matter how long it has been. Emily and Steph look so great! Exactly the same as I remember, and it doesn't feel to any of us that we are so much older. It still felt like we were high school friends out for a girls night. Only we talked about different things like kids, travel, and careers rather than tests and boys. I am so grateful for such good friends. I was always blessed with good friends growing up and think I turned out pretty good, in part, because of them. When I look back on my growing up years, my memories are so good and fun, with very few regrets, because I had wonderful friends surrounding me. I hope that my girls will be blessed with the same kind of friends. There's nothing better than a friend you can just be yourself around and who makes you a better person. Emily and Stephanie are those kind of friends.

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What a fun day I had! After a fabulous afternoon with girlfriends, I had a hot date to look forward to with my man. (o: The girls were excited to have a night with grandma and grandpa and we were thrilled to have our first date where the babysitting would be free!

I was so excited when I found out Utah has a Ruth's Chris downtown, just like Portland. So of course, we planned to head there. It's been our traditional anniversary date for years. I am so happy we could continue this tradition. Clyde* made reservations a little later, so we had time to just do what we wanted. We ended up at Emergency Essentials! Now is that romantic or what? We had a great time and spent a good hour there! We looked at all the emergency preparedness stuff, talked about what we'd like to work on getting, bought a few things and sampled some of the flavored milks. It was fun, believe it or not. (o: We must be old. Then we headed downtown and enjoyed a fantastic meal at good old Ruth's Chris. We must have been there for two hours - we got lots of good food and just talked and talked and reminisced. It was a wonderful night. I can't believe it's been 14 years! I am so lucky - it has been a wonderful 14 years and I can't wait for more.

Our Merry Little Christmas!!

Note: I am annoyed at all these big spaces and can't figure out the problem - it is driving me nuts! Sorry - this will require more scrolling...

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The layout of our new house was a little tricky. Our tradition Christmas morning is that the girls come in our room and then we all go down to see what Santa left together. The girls had to walk past the room full of goodies to get to our bedroom this year, but they are so good - they blinded their eyes as they came downstairs and ran to our room still. They may have peeked a little, but they put on a good show of surprise when we walked into the family room together!

One funny thing Natalie wanted to do this year was try and "catch" Santa on our camcorder. We set it up before she went to bed and when we went back to look at it, we actually caught something! We heard Santa coming in the door with his big boots, and bells jingling. Then, that jolly old man is so smart - he must have seen the camcorder because right before we thought we'd see him in the camera, he must have turned it off! Maybe we'll catch him next year! Natalie also left several sweet notes for Santa. She is always so thoughtful.

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Santa left a gymnastics mat! A big hit in our house that day and since.

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Pillow Pets were all the rage this year. Natalie and Angela wanted one so bad it hurt. Sarah bought one with her birthday money a month before and her jealous sisters literally cried that they didn't get one too. They had to wait for what felt like forever, which made it so fun to see their reaction when they opened them up.

This was the first picture I took with my new present. I know - can you believe it? Another camera! Bill* knows I love camera stuff like some women like jewelry. I got a 5D and feel so fancy now!

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All the girls got bean bags with their names embroidered on them from Santa. Sarah is sitting in hers above. She was very excited about her sewing book and kit that I put together for her with fabric and everything. (It was a pretty cute gift set if I do say so myself. (o: )

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Angela and her long awaited Pillow Pet. She is also wearing her new Naartjie head band kind of kooky. (This is a new store my sister in law introduced me to that has the cutest kids clothes.)

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Angela asked Santa for a moving bear. The only moving bear I'd seen is Teddy Ruxbin, which was big in the 80's. So I don't know where the idea came from. Well, what do you know? Santa knew right where to find a moving bear, thus granting this 5 year old's wish. What a guy.

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We got a fun visit from Bill's* parents on Christmas. It was such a treat for the girls to share all their fun presents with grandma and grandpa. They even brought a little present for Twilight. So sweet. (o: Twilight LOVES Christmas. She runs around and hops in all the paper, ribbons and empty boxes like nobody's business.

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After a wonderful morning, we got to head over to my parents' house for more fun! Christmas back home is the BEST! Mom made wonderful food, as usual! And the house looked so festive!

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Grandma and grandpa and aunt Ann came too! Everything was perfect. Even our favorite Christmas show "A Christmas Story" was playing in the background!

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I love this cute picture. Even though it's a little underexposed - it just captures one of the things I love about being back. My kids are getting to know my extended family that I love so much. It makes me happy.

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The pretty snowflake lights hanging in the front yard at mom and dad's house.

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This was one of my favorite presents I found this year. Isn't that the cutest monster doll ever? I found it at The Quilted Bear - where people sell homemade gifts. It looks like Sammy appreciates it too!

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Cute Sarah in her new scarf and wearing her flower barrette from aunt Chrissy.

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I was so excited when I found these little kits to do the Mentos/Diet Coke explosion. I had to get them for my brothers and knew they'd want to try them out right away. (o:

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Funny how entertaining a little "explosion" can be! It was a big hit and since I have two brothers, we got to watch it twice!

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We finished off the evening playing the game I bought for my sister - Quelf. It is pretty silly and we laughed our heads off. The older kids really liked playing it too. I love my family. What a perfect day.

Christmas Eve - Home For Christmas!

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We were excited to experience our first Christmas back in Utah! We knew it would be much busier than we were used to, but we couldn't wait.

Kelly and Lisa were our amazing hosts for the Christmas Eve family get together. We got together earlier in the day and had lunch and an afternoon full of fun activities.

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Could Angela make playing Bingo look any more fun? Woohoo! (o: The kids all had fun putting marshmallows on the cute Christmas pictures. Lisa was so sweet and even had wrapped prizes when they won! No wonder Angela was so excited. (o:

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Lisa was very clever. The prizes that the kids got for Bingo were the next activity! The girls all got cute water bottles they could paint and stencil. This was a huge hit! Aunt Lisa is the best!

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I just love this adorable picture of Anna. Kelly used her like a puppet to conduct the talent show. The kids (and adults) were laughing their heads off.

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"Up on the Housetop" was Natalie's number. After getting sick and not getting to perform at my extended family party, she was thrilled to have an audience for her newly learned song. She got thunderous applause.

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Kelton and Lisa played a really pretty duet. Most of the kids did some kind of cute little talent.

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Grandma finished things off with a pretty primary song and her cute visual aid to help us remember the words. She is so clever. The kids pulled strings behind the board that lifted up pictures of parts of the nativity.

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Just hanging out! What could be better?

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This was one of my favorite memories of the day. Kelly and Lisa put together this entertaining lip sync with the kids. They sang that Chipmunks Christmas song - "Christmas Christmas time is here . . ." We laughed until we cried. Then the cousins got turns trying it out.

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I think this one's of Kelton. (O:

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And no party is complete without a little Guitar Hero. (O: Corbin was an amazing dancer. There was also a treasure hunt for the kids led by Travis*. Even with his funny rules about crawling, not running, not pushing or yelling - somehow there still ended up being an injury. (O: We had a very full and FUN afternoon.

In the evening, because it wasn't too late, we were able to do our fondue tradition and have time for the girls to open their traditional Christmas pajamas and . . .

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The traditional Transformers from dad! (o: They had fun playing with these until bedtime.

This was one of the first years, I had almost all my wrapping done before Christmas Eve! It made for a nice, relaxing night as we waited for Santa to come!

Night on the Town!

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What a wonderful new tradition we get to have being back in Utah!! We were so excited to show the girls Temple Square at Christmas.

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We decided to get dinner first and it wasn't hard to decide where to eat. The Lion House Pantry! We had been here with my mom and Christine last March and loved it. It's a nice, casual atmosphere - the girls love that it is cafeteria style where you pick what you want. The only problem was that it seemed like everyone else in Utah had the same great idea to eat there. We waited in line for about an hour. Outside most of the time. Luckily, we were bundled up. And one of the Lion House staff came out with homemade butter mints to help ease our pain.

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This was after about 40 minutes of waiting. Don't they look thrilled? Ang always smiles for pictures -what a sport!

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Ahhhh - it was worth the wait. We had a lovely dinner - such good food!

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Then we were off for the main event - temple square lights.

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The main nativity that has the story from Luke 2 play over load speakers has been completely updated since we were here last. It was really nice.

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We love to go see the Christus in the visitor's center. We also watched a short film about the nativity in the warm building.

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This was the time of year Kent* and I got married - it was fun to reminisce and even walk right by and take a peek at the room we had our reception in - in the Joseph Smith Building. I still remember the amazing Christmas decorations, the huge tree in the entry and all the Christmas lights outside the windows. It was such a beautiful place for a reception. Good times. (o:

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Natalie LOVED all the horse drawn carriages - we'll have to reserve one next year. She really wanted a picture "with" one.

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This ally reminded Sarah of something from a Harry Potter scene! (o:

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This was right outside of the room where our reception was held 14 years ago.