Christmas 2011

Though it's rare to get snow here in Houston, our colder weather did come right on cue..right in time for Christmas.  It was quite rainy and cold on Christmas Eve and Christmas (though you wouldn't know it by stepping outside today), and we actually have a real fireplace (which I laughed about when we first moved in), so we enjoyed a warm and toasty Christmas Eve by the fire.

Like many families, we re-enacted the nativity story.  Given that children are in short supply in this house, Eli got to triple up on roles--shepherd, Joseph, and a wise man.  He enjoyed dressing up, and he and I had even memorized some of the scriptures earlier.

 

 

I know many families (Josh's included) open up new pajamas on Christmas Eve, but since I love Christmas stories, I thought it would be fun to get a new Christmas book instead and then read it together.  So that's what we've done for the past two (and only) Christmases that we've actually spent at home.  It's a fun tradition, and Eli LOVES getting a new book--particularly a Christmas one on Christmas Eve.  This year's book was called The Gingerbread Pirates.  The only negative was that Eli wouldn't let me eat my gingerbread cookies after reading the book.  In the story, the gingerbread pirate cookies come to life and try to save themselves from being eaten by Santa.  Eli told me that the gingerbread boy cookies that we made were REAL and I wasn't allowed to eat them, and of course, we couldn't give Santa a gingerbread boy either. :-)

Josh's mom always sends us pajamas because that's the tradition in Josh's family.

 

These are the exact words that Eli wanted us to write.  Hilarious!  Do you think he's on to something? :-)  As you can see, we could only leave a gingerbread tree for Santa, not a gingerbread boy.

Christmas Day was a little different than normal because it was the Sabbath, and though it was different, I really liked going to church on Christmas Day.  It helped keep the day in perspective.  Our ward had an interesting program, which I loved.  We sang all the Christmas hymns together and had one intermediate speaker.  It was great!  Since our ward started at 11 AM, we decided not to open our gifts until after we got home from church so that we wouldn't feel rushed.  We did open our stockings and eat Christmas breakfast before we went to church, but leaving the gifts until later gave us some excitement to look forward to.  Eli was so funny because when he'd open a gift, he'd say, "Oh wow, I was wanting a ??? and now I got it!"  He even had a hard time letting Josh and me open our gifts.  He wanted to open them for us.

Christmas dinner was the usual spiral sliced ham.  I forgot to take a picture of my dutch apple pie, which was DELICIOUS.  

Thanks to everyone for the gifts!  We had so many packages coming, I'm sure the delivery guy had our apartment memorized.  We also enjoyed talking to many of you via telephone!

Christmas Cookies

Eli and I had fun making cookies yesterday and today.  Actually, Eli mostly ate the dough, frosting, and cookies while I made them.  But he seems to like wearing an apron and pretending he's actually baking them.  The key now is to keep them until Christmas, which might be hard to do since they are pretty tasty.  However, Santa needs a plate full of cookies, so we'll have to have some self-control! 

 

Thanksgiving in Utah

Last week Eli and I got home after being in Utah for two weeks.  We traveled from one end of the state to the other, and picked up Josh along the way.  We spent the first week down in St. George at my parents' home, and then we traveled up to Spencer and Mindy's home in Layton where Josh met us.  We had a nice Thanksgiving together with a lot of my family. 

Eli loved playing with his cousin Sophee.  He proposed to her while he was there :-), and yesterday in church there was a little girl in his nursery class whom he kept calling Sophee.  Needless to say, I think he misses her.

We went to the Hill Air Force Museum.  Eli was appropriately dressed in his aviator jacket.

We visited Temple Square where we got to see the lights, fight the crowds, and freeze to death.  Eli commented that he would much rather be in Houston than Salt Lake due to the cold.  We are definitely a warm-blooded family now, and I marvel that I lived there for three years and survived the cold.  Yet I remember I loved living in Salt Lake.  It was fun to show Eli where Mommy and Daddy used to live and work and go to school.  I'm not sure he appreciated it in quite the same way, but it was still a fun walk down memory lane. 

I also had a flood of memories when we traveled up to Logan with my parents the day after Thanksgiving.  Since Josh had never seen where I grew up, my dad gave him the tour--the cache valley cheese factory, USU, the temple, the cemetery where my grandparents are buried, the apartment I grew up in, the farm out in Trenton.  I myself hadn't seen many of the places for years, and I found it interesting how smaller everything looked to me.  Every time I go to St. George, the growth amazes me, so I was expecting to be shocked when I went to Logan.  Though there was some growth, I was surprised that it was still relatively the same place I remember as a little girl.

This is the apartment building where we lived for about 5 years while my dad was attending USU.

This was my Grandpa and Grandma Grant's home.  You can see the barn where they milked the cows behind the house.

This is where I lived for about the first four years of my life.

 We were able to squeeze in some time with Matt and Megan while we were there.  They live in Farmington, and we got to see their beautiful home and spend two evenings with them before Megan so graciously took us to the airport for an early morning flight.  For Family Home Evening, we went to the Boondocks (I think that was what it was called) and enjoyed an evening of play.  We had a great time!  Eli loved the games as well as his prize from redeeming the tickets--a light saber.      

This picture cracks me up.  Do you see the look of sheer delight on Matt's face?