Christmas Warmup

Our family Christmasing got started on Sunday this week with a little get together at Grandma and Grandpa Lloyd's house. It was the perfect thing to get us all in the right mood for Christmas coming up this week! Grandma and Grandpa decided they wanted to pass down some of their Christmas traditions to the younger generations, so they gave each of their children and grandchildren an item that they have loved and cherished and has helped them to celebrate Christmas for many years. Jentry and I received a set of beautiful porcelain angels that have adorned Grandma and Grandpa's fireplace mantle for over 10 years!

They are sweet and simple. I really feel like they help bring the peace and joy of the Savior's birth into our home, which is they real gift we have been given! Thank you so much

Grandma and Grandpa Lloyd!

Bottoms Up!

We have all heard that you should never go grocery shopping when you are hungry...only bad things happen then! But what about going grocery shopping when you are thirsty? Well now I can tell you.

Your shopping cart will consist of :

2 16oz. flavored water beverages
4 2L bottles of soda
2 bottles of sparkling cider
1 carton of OJ
1 jug of milk

And you will resist the urge to go for the giant jug of apple juice and go for the laundry detergent instead (don't worry, i did NOT drink the laundry detergent)

Gloomy

Today is an aweful, gray, and gloomy day. I apologize for my pessimism, I really do, but I just can't help it. I had to drive all the way down to Walmart this morning to buy eggs (because we've been out all weekend!) and muffin paper cups (what are those called anyway?). The roads were slushy and the parking lot was even slushier, I got that nasty gray slush all over the bottom of my jeans because they drag on the ground because I am so short. GRRR!

Even though it was 10:00 in the morning Wamart was still a zoo, and I detest crowds. I battled my way around the ginormous supercenter for 45 minutes to find what I needed, then stood in line for another 20 while stray children tried to climb in my cart, and when I finally got to the cash register....I realized...I never grabbed my wallet and put it in my purse!

Shopping attempt: foiled!

Then I drove all the way home grabbed my wallet, went to the Albertsons just up the street and payed 12 dollars more for the same items! The worst part of all of this is that it is raining, and the rain is melting all of the beautiful Christmas snow!
Oh Bother!

Later that day: I have mostly recovered from my earlier pitty party thanks to a papa murphey's Hawaiian pizza now in my fridge, warm fiber-one banana nut muffins, and the fact that the rain has turned to snow again. I apologize for earlier and I hope my gloominess didn't rain on anyone's parade!

Christmas Cookies

All of my life I have watched other people doing cute, creative, and artistic things. I have always coveted their ability, resigning myself to the fact that I was not born with these talents. Recently I have decided that I am going to try and overcome my creative "dis" ability. You can do anything if you put your mind to it right? So I have been poking around websites and magazines, undertaking projects that seem like they wouldn't be too difficult....some of them have turned out alright, while other undertakings have gone slightly awry. Anyway last Monday night one of my Co-workers brought us some Santa Clause Christmas cookies to work. They were absolutely adorable! Now you see, not being able to make really good looking christmas cookies has always been one of my great disapointments in life! I know thats not really the point of making christmas cookies, they're to eat not to look at! Thats what I have always told myselft, but I've always had a secret desire to make christmas cookies that look like they belong on the cover page of the december issue of Better Homes and Gardens! So instead of devouring my santa clause sugar cookie, I spent a few hours studying it and going over possibilites in my mind. I decided that maybe I had a shot, so last night Jentry and I went over to his parent's house (my kitchen is nowhere near suitable for such an undertaking!) to do some baking and docorating. It was a lot of fun, group christmas cookie making has not been a part of my life for a few years and I had forgotten how enjoyable making Chritmas cookies could be, listening to christmas music and having fun with your partners in crime!

I was also VERY SUPRISED and PLEASED with the end product of our endevours!

I told Jentry he could decorate his cookies however he wanted to. He did not take the invitation lightly....he came up with some very interesting creations!

People often ask me if I have any children and my response is always, no, I have a HUSBAND, and that is quite enough! Do you now understand what I mean?

Yay for Christmas cookies and ingenuitive thought!

OH Christmas tree, OH Christmas Tree....

Yay! We finally got our Christmas Tee! Unfortunately this year we were not able to go up in the mountian to cut a tree, but our trip to home depot was ALMOST just as exciting! I found that if I walked in between the tightly packed rows of Christmas trees in the lot (where I wasn't supposed to be) I felt just like i was in a real forest! A very, very orderly forest, where the trees grow in order from smallest to largest and grouped themselves according to type! Anyway, this year Jentry and I decided to go against the stereotype that bigger is better, and we picked the smallest little tree we could find! It was a marvelous idea because we didn't have to worry about tying the tree to the top of our car, we just stuffed it in the trunk! We also didn't have to worry about chopping any of it off to fit through our front door! And it suits us just perfectly :)

Here it is, our petit Christmas tree!

Jentry, is so good to me...he did all the hard stuff like cutting of the bottom branches so we could water the tree and then stringing all the lights on the tree ! (I had attempted the latter, which did not turn out well!!!)

Me and my little Christmas tree! See how cute we are together? I loved it because it was so easy to decorate, no hard to reach spots at all!


The tree turned out to be a beautiful little christmas tree, full of light, to help remind us that Christmas is about light, the light of Christ, and about filling our lives with the light of Christ and Sharing it with others, no matter how big or SMALL we may be

Mountain Bicycle Bobsledding

So last month, I mean clear back in October, when we had our little snowstorm here in the Valley, Jentry and I decided we that we would try our hand at pioneering a new sport...because regular old mountain biking just wasn't exciting enough. Imagine yourself riding your mountain bike down a steep winding bobsled course. Now add large rocks, logs, and hanging trees and imagine that the bobsled course is six miles long! Now THAT sounds exciting!

Ahh, here we are so unsuspecting at the bottom

The Fall Colors were amazing!

It wasn't so bad going up, just a lot of work cause our tires kept slipping in the snow. Here is Jentry at the top.

Our Bikes, looking a little out of place, where are our skiis?

Me, not so happy about all the work...and my feet are wet.

And we start our way down...doesn't look so bad right?

Here is where it gets a little tricky....

Yikes!!!!

The Fall colors still beautiful, however I did not get to enjoy them very much because I was concentrating too hard on not riding my bike of the side of the mountain!

Whew! Here we are, somehow safely at the bottome!

First 4Runner adventure

Last Sunday Jentry and I took a little drive up Farmington Canyon. It was our first offroading adventure in the 4Runner and it was a breathtakingly beautiful evening!