Christmas 2009

I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas, we sure did. We left our house on Christmas Eve to spend a few days at my parents house. There was lots of fun, food, family and presents as you can see in the picture.

We started our Christmas Eve party by making candy bar trains. I think the kids and adults had a good time. Each family made a train.

Pinnock family

Arfmann family

Hansen family

Taylor family

Price family

(Sorry Lemons' family, you were there, I didn't get a picture)

We had our annual talent show, McKell played the piano and sang.

We opened presents

We gave presents


Santa brought us so much stuff - including a new computer

We also wore matching pj's - a new tradition for us this year!

McKell's favorite gift - a hot pink iPod (she is holding it in this picture, it is just small)

Braxton's favorite gift - a PS3 (He set it up and grandma's house and here he is playing it)


On Christmas Day we went to see the new Alvin and the Chipmunks, the kids and I liked it, Derek didn't.

Other highlights of Christmas 2009: Sitting in the hot tub, a prime rib dinner (yummy) on Sunday, driving around to see Christmas lights, watching movies, and mainly just spending time with the people we love most - our family:) Hope yours was this great!

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

I love, love, love the holidays. I love the decorations, the lights, Christmas trees, shopping, holiday parties, Christmas songs, just everything about Christmas time. So much has been happening. Derek's family had their Christmas party last weekend at a beautiful cabin in Ashton. It had lots of fun things to do. The little kids spent most of their time sitting in the hot tub.

Braxton spent a lot of his time playing ping pong. He had lots of fun.



Our trip was cut a little short because we were worried about the

weather and came home to lots of snow.

December is a month of multiple performances. McKell played her violin with the school orchestra and also had a piano recital this week. This is her practicing right before we left for the recital. She did a fabulous job.

This is McKell and some of her friends right after the Christmas Music program (my program) at the school. It is finally over - I am so glad! All the kids did such a great job. It is so much work, but so thrilling to watch the kids perform and sing loud and know all the words to every song. A huge payoff for me. I seriously love my job. Also, it is a great perk to be the music teacher and have a front row seat to watch McKell sing. Now, I can finally finish the last of my shopping.

Church News

Yesterday at our ward Christmas breakfast, our old priest quorum advisor showed me the current edition of the Church News. I was surprised to see an article about the Eagle Scout project of one of my priests. He raised wheat on some land of the advisor, had it processed into flour, and donated it to the local food bank. To see the full article go to: http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/58289/Law-of-the-harvest-yields-flour-for-food-bank.html

This was such a fun project - our priests were able to help cultivate the soil and get it ready for planting, plant the wheat using a very old drill, lay and move irrigation sprinkler pipe, ride along in the combine as the wheat was harvested, and finally deliver the flour to the food bank.

None of these boys have ever been around a farm. It was so fun to watch them drive a tractor and learn about where some of our food actually comes from. Working with the youth has always been at the top of my "Callings I Never Want" list - but it has been great - mainly because of my great boys.