First Christmas

Dave and I had a very fun first Christmas together! (And yes, Santa brought us a Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head!)



I had a huge surprise for Dave and made him go on a treasure hunt through the house to find his gift...

The gift wouldn't fit under the Christmas tree, so I tried to hide it in the pantry.


But it wouldn't fit in the pantry either (where Dave found some Sparkling Cider - which he loves and I never buy it), so I tried to hide the gift in the freezer.


Unfortunately the freezer wasn't big enough either (but it did contain some Cookie Dough Ice Cream - another treat I never buy), so my last option was under the stairs.


And there it was! A new flat screen TV!

Dave was really surprised and we both love our new HDTV!


P.S. If you would like our old TV for FREE and are willing to come pick it up, it is yours, for FREE!

Neighbor Gifts

Here's what we gave out for our neighbor gifts this year...


...a brown paper sack holding two bottles of water and a fun little gift tag that I created all by myself.

Simple. Inexpensive. Thoughtful.

The tag says:
Revelations 7:17. For the Lamb...shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
What a glorious time of year to celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ who brings us living water to eternally quench our thirst for happiness, peace, and everlasting life. Merry Christmas!

Passing on a Tradition

My poor grandmother has recently had surgery on her arm and was not able to make the Yorkshire Pudding for our Family Christmas Dinner last night. And so my aunt trusted me to the task.

I have never made Yorkshire before and I was rather nervous. The first two batches came out with little air bubbles all over. All the succeeding batches looked good on top but the bottoms were dark. I was worried.

But once we got that Yorkshire next to the hot roast beef and gravy all my worries disappeared. They turned out fabulous! Even my grandma commented on how good they tasted.

However, my mother told me I should make about 120 pieces - or 10 batches worth. So I did and in the end I went home with probably over 4 dozen leftovers.

If you don't have time to make Yorkshire Pudding for your Christmas dinner I have some in my freezer. And I'm happy to share!

Check out this Wikipedia article devoted to Yorkshire Pudding

Do you know where...?

...Half of Salt Lake is at 10:00 p.m. on a Thursday night the week before Christmas?

They are all on Temple Square. I have never seen it as busy as it was last night and it was late on a school night! People are crazy...but then I guess we are too since we were there as well.





Sorry for the small, blurry pics. I'm still trying to get used to this strange phone.

Mourning Verizon

Monday was a very sad day. We had to turn in our trusty Verizon phones for Sprint phones. After spending three days with my new phone I think I can fairly say that I am in deep mourning.

I miss the days of full coverage in every corner of the Conference Center and at my house.

I miss the time when I only dropped phone calls as I drove over the plains of Nebraska.

I miss the easy-to-use number pad.

I miss not having unlimited mobile to mobile with my family.

I miss my petite Blackberry that fit so nicely in unmentionable areas when I needed to use two hands.

I miss Verizon.

(I think I'm going to cry right about now.)

The cause of my mourning

Getting the Family Together

This year we smiled for not one but two family photo shoots.
Fun times!



(more to come on Christmas Day)

Deal of the Week

They were on sale at Rite Aid this week and I had some killer coupons. In the end I spent a whopping $1.72 for all six boxes of cereal. Now that's some good shopping!

Elf Yourself Christmas Fever

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

O Christmas Tree

It's done and it looks beautiful!
You're all invited to come see!

Young Women in Excellence

I had a thousand worries but in the end Young Women in Excellence turned out great!

Because we have so few girls and because we are a new ward with lots of new leaders, we made spotlights as the main part of our program. Each girl spotlighted another girl and the leaders did each other. To be sure the general young women presidency would approve, we included a segment about how each girl is "an example of the believers" (1 Tim 4:12).

Hopefully, with this new year approaching, I can be more organized and we can better focus on the theme for the year.

In the meantime, didn't my table turn out well!

They Made it Official

Megan and Michael are finally engaged!

We're so happy for them -- and especially glad that she will not have to take back the dress (that looks amazing on her (with the broach) and was an even more amazing price).

Congratulations you guys!