...sigh...

So much to blog, so little time.  Things have been crazy around here!  I had to quicky jot down a couple of funny things that have happened this December.

First and my favorite story, as I was putting presents underneath the tree, Hannah asked me, "We give presents on Christmas?"  (as opposed to getting them.)  WHAT??  Haven't I taught her anything?  We have much learning and teaching to do at our house.

I gave each of my kids an Advent calendar at the beginning of the month.  They have been a hit!  Hannah's is Littlest Pet Shop and Chance's is Lego.  Each day they are SOOO excited to open a new box and see what is inside.  Chance's is a little mini lego set each day that he is supposed to put together.  Hannah's is little toy pets with accessories to match.  The first two days or so, Hannah asked when she was going to find candy inside one of her boxes.  Oops.  The whole reason I got it was to avoid giving her sweet tooth another excuse for a fix!  But luckily the Stowers came through and gave each of the kids a chocolate Advent calendar!  So now they have the best of both worlds.  Opening their calendars each day is definitely a highlight for them. 

I gave my final Relief Society lesson for the year (and for the manual) on the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. It was one of those lessons that you have heard a million times - how do you portray it? I finally ended up showing a DVD for the last half of the lesson. The church has done such a great job of attempting to recreate and properly illustrate church history the way it happened. Put that to music, and me talking could not top the DVD. I think the message was portrayed well; however, I am definitely looking forward to teaching out of the Gospel Principals manual!  The "Teachings of Joseph Smith" manual was difficult for me!

Shawn's mom decided to do the 12 days of Christmas for each of her kids and their families.  There are four of her six kids who are married, and between the four of us, there are 11 grandkids.  Shawn's mom is a present wrapping maniac, and wrapped every single gift.  To put this in perspective, for the kids only, that is 132 presents she wrapped!  She has always wrapped every gift for her kids while they were growing up.  That is something I am just simply too lazy to do!  haha  But the 12 days of Christmas has been really fun.  The gifts have been spiritual but fun at the same time.  I can tell a lot of thought was put into each gift.  The kids also had their annual "grandma party" at April's.  They talk about that party all year long because all of the cousins get to sleep over together at Grandma's.  I don't know how Grandma does it, to be honest!

We went to Las Vegas during the first week of December to meet my sister Lindsay, her husband Jason, and their new baby Lily.  Jason was attending a pharmacy convention in Vegas, so it gave us a good excuse to go down and spend some time with them before they came home for Christmas.  That Lily is the cutest baby in the world!  She is so dang cute, I just loved holding her!  She is so alert and is always looking at something.  She knew she was in a new place, and she's only barely four months old!  We love her to death. 

We had so much fun in Las Vegas - we took the kids on their first flight!  I was able to find really inexpensive plane tickets ($25.00 each way!) so we thought what the heck!  We thought it would be fun to have the kids' first flight as a short one.  And they loved it!  They thought it was so cool.  Chance's favorite part was going through security.  why??  Don't ask me.  He thought it was great fun to take off his shoes and backpack and watch them go through the X-ray machine.  And he thought it was really great when the metal detector beeped and security officer had to stop me because I left my cell phone in my pocket.  Oops.  The kids RAN down the jetway to hop on the plane, and immediately wanted to pull their tray tables down for no apparant reason.  They had a great time.  The highlight of the trip (for me) was seeing the Polar Express movie in 4-D.  It felt like we were really riding the train, you could smell the hot chocolate, and it was snowing in the theatre!  So fun!  My kids loved Circus Circus (of course) and the M&M Factory.  We saw a pet show, where cats and dogs were trained to do funny tricks and stuff, but I think I liked the Polar Express better!  I love Las Vegas, I know it has an evil side to it but there is so much to do.  We missed my office party and our ward party by leaving town that weekend so that was kind of a bummer, but we had a fun time.  We stayed in our timeshare which is very conveniently located directly across the street from the outlet mall!  Yes!

Lindsay and Jason blessed Lily this past Sunday.  They had the blessing in Riverdale in the Relief Society room with just close family.  It was so nice, and Jason gave such a sweet blessing.  Lily looked goregous in her long white dress, but she was exhausted by the time everything was over!

Well, that's enough rambling for now.  I'll have to post more pictures at another time, hopefully sooner rather than later.  Merry Christmas!!