The great hunters

This year for Christmas my dad also gave all the boys in the family a pheasant hunt on Saturday. The little boys thought it was great because Branson and Carson both got guns for Christmas. After they got home mom and I had them some nice warm bread and soup made. It was fun to see how excited those boys were! MaCade had fun, but only shot a couple to give the boys a chance to get as many as they could. After they got back, MaCade was on cleaning duty and rinsed all the feathers off the meat. Way to go babe! While they were out hunting my mom, trevy, syd, and I all took down my mom's Christmas decorations and trees. Those little girls were such great help!

Christmas Festivities

This year was our first year to stay at our own house on Christmas Eve night. We normally go stay at one of our parents, but when we built the new house we decided we would start staying home. We had a great Christmas Morning with each other. My husband did an excellent job surprising me this year. We always seem to know what we are going to get, but this year we tried to keep it a secret. After we got up and played Rockband on the Wii for awhile I called to talk to my mom and she told us we better hurry over if we wanted to make it before the storm got to bad. So we headed over to Fielding to celebrate Christmas with our family.

First stop was Gm Kent's house. She has breakfast every year for all the family. It is quite crowded, but it sure makes grandma happy to have us all their! This year grandma gave us some items to help us be prepared. It was a great gift and something we all could use.

After Gm Kent's we headed over to Paula & Jed's to give them their gifts. They had already sent our gifts home with us last week. We were suppose to have a party later on that evening with Cade's brothers, but with the storm none of them were able to make it.

We then went to my parent's house and had our traditional Christmas lunch and then opened gifts. I love the gifts my mom and dad give us every year. They always give us items that we can really use. This year mom focused on a little food storage and household supplies and my dad gave the guys a shop vac. Also for the past little while I have wanted to get together with my mom and make me an apron. I see them all over and think they are so cute, but would be so much cheaper to make, well to my suprise my mom made all the married women an apron! I just loved it. I left it on most the afternoon after we took a photo with them on. Also, another gift my dad got for the whole family was a popcorn cart. My mom, Becki, Maddi, and I all put it together and then tried it out to see how it worked. The grandkids loved it and now every time they come over to my parent's house they want to go down and make some popcorn.

After we got done at my parent's we headed over to Cade's moms. We just hung out with her and Jed and played a board game. We ended up sleeping over night their because of the bad snow storm.

Christmas Gifts and Such

I finally got all my Christmas Shopping done today! What a relief, I hope everyone will like the gifts I got them. Last night after work we went and took around some friend & neighbor gifts, it was fun to stop by and visit with them. We took or old neighbors a plate of cookies and visited with them for an hour. It was fun to see how much their kids had changed. We hadn't seen them in over a year. At times I miss living down on the island I loved our old ward and felt like I had grown to know so many great people. We haven't really had the chance to get to know many people in our new ward yet because we are in primary, but so far we feel like the ward is very welcoming.

I am so excited for the holiday break I can't wait. Work has been a little slow with the students all gone. I hope this weekend to get everything ready for the holidays by wrapping the gifts and cleaning our house! I am excited to spend some extra time with my husband just relaxing over the break! We hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

HaPpY hOlIdAyS!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! I love the holidays, but for some reason this year I just can't get into the holiday spirit! Although this morning I woke up and decided I have got to get in gear. I have only 2 presents bought and many others to buy! I was so excited to put my tree up the week of Thanksgiving and after I got it up I lost the spirit of Christmas! This year is the first year we have had a Christmas Tree. We use to use the 3 small alpine trees in our little upstairs apartment on the island. So this year I was dying to put up the tree with all the cute new decorations I bought!
I love this time of year and I always try to remember the true meaning of Christmas! I have this cute nativity scene our friends gave us a couple of years ago and it helps remind me of why we celebrate this wonderful day of the year!

Weekend with the Bywater Boys

What a fun filled weekend I had with the Bywater boys plus Beck. Becki invited me to go down to Temple Square and watch her boys while she attended her brother and sister-in-law's family sealing. So I got off work early and headed down with her and her boys!While she was in the temple the boys and I learned about family history, watched the Joseph Smith movie, took a tour of the north and south visitor centers, and got some dinner at the Navuoo Cafe. I was impressed with how well her boys were and how interested they were in all the different displays. When we ate dinner there was a table for two I told the boys to sit down and I would stand. Branson was such a gentleman and offered me to sit in his seat! After Becki was done we took a tour of the lights on Temple Square and then headed over to the Conference Center for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Concert! The concert was terrific! We loved every minute of it! I definitely want to make going a tradition!After the concert we headed over to the Little America hotel! The boys wanted to make sure they didn't miss out on anything this trip so at 10:45p.m. we headed over to the pool! What an adventure I had with those two handsome boys! On Saturday we got up got ready and went to Lunch and then headed home, the roads were extremely horrible we only went about 25mph on the freeway from Salt Lake to Kaysville.

Thanks again Beck for inviting me to go with you guys! I had a great time!

In other exciting news! We finally broke down and bought MaCade a truck! The green car is going to die any day now and the old blue truck is just not reliable. We are so glad to have a reliable 4-wheel drive vehicle for these winter months! Cade is extremely excited to have a truck to pull the duck boat! He was able to pull the boat this weekend and go hunting with some friends! They had a successful hunt, they got 17 ducks between the 4 of them!

Grandpa Garth

Grandpa Garth passed away on December 6, 2008 at the young age of 85. We will miss him dearly. I was so glad I got to know him. What a funny guy grandpa Garth was. I loved one of the stories shared at his funeral. He was over a group of scouts in his ward and they were making pancakes and a fly landed on one of them as it was cooking. He told the scouts just leave it there a little protein never hurt anyone.
It was bittersweet to see him go. We will miss visiting with him at Cade's moms and most of all we will miss him the most as Christmas Eve rolls around. He always had a party on Christmas Eve for the family. Even though his house was always packed it was still fun to go and see how happy it made grandpa to have everyone there.
We love you grandpa Garth and will miss you lots, but know that you are in a better place!

Temple Square

This past weekend MaCade and I took my mom down to Temple Square for her concert. We have kind of made it a tradition to go down and watch her every year. This year my mom had two concerts and between them we went and took a tour of the Beehive House. It is the house Brigham Young lived in when he was President of the Church. It was a beautiful home. The displays were amazing and gave me a prespective of what it would have been like to live back then. It was a true testimony builder to take the tour and hear the stories of the prophet Brigham Young.

I love going to Temple Square and seeing the beautiful Christmas lights. I also, love listening to the beautiful music my mom's music group sings. This year was great my mom sang a solo and she did a wonderful job!

Thanksgiving

We have had some major colds at our house the last week and I forgot to post about our Thanksgiving Feast! This year we went to my parents house. We had so much fun. A few of us arrived early to have a little photo shoot for our Christmas cards and after that the Feast began. I love my mom's homemade cooking and the huge assortment of pies my parents make every year! I love this time of year, it always changes the way I view life and it really makes me stop and think of all the many things I am thankful for!

I have been tagged by Mandi, so here ya go...


RULES:
1. Go to your pictures
2. Go to the 4th file & upload the 4th picture
3. Post & tell about the picture
4. Tag 4 friends

And the lucky picture is..... from this past January when my family all got together at my parent's house and went snowmobiling and sleigh riding. Cade didn't bring any snow clothes so he put on James' coat and my snow cap to take the snowmobile out for a ride. Doesn't he look so cute!?! I can't wait for the snow to come so we can go sleigh riding again this January!I tag Lysni, Brittani, Sharon, and Jaci.