Merry Christmas!

December 1st to Christmas

We started out our Christmas season with the Annual Christmas Parade downtown.

The Grinch

It wouldn't be a Christmas Parade without Santa!

Kambree is in the school choir and we went to listen to her perform her Christmas program.

Nelson's NJHS group volunteered some time to ring the bell for the Salvation Army. Nelson decided to play the trombone during his shift.

After Thanksgiving my sister in laws and I all made crafts together. This is one of them that I had to take home to finish. I thought it turned out pretty good!

We got to watch Annie in her ballet class for a little mini recital. She is doing really well in her class. She has the best splits!

Luke and I attended Kambree's class Christmas party. They started off the party with a relay race.

I was in charge of our ward Christmas party this year. We made lots of snowflakes and hung them from ceiling in the gym for the decorations. I had to take a picture since I was so excited about how it turned out.

Candy Cane the elf came to stay with us for the month of December. She ended up in all sorts of crazy places.

For our last family night before Christmas we decorated gingerbread houses. Here's Nelson's.

We decided to sign up for a bell ring shift ourselves! Annie and Nelson came to help me. Nelson's trombone playing was a big hit! People also loved Annie's elf hat and her cute "Merry Christmas" greeting. We had a great time. I think we'll try to do it again next year.

A few more funny things that Candy Cane did.

It really is the most wonderful time of the year!

The 5K

Brad asked me if I wanted to run in a 5K. I told him I'd do it with him, but I couldn't run the whole time. Early on Saturday morning he went and signed us up for the 5k Bambi run.

Before the race.

After the race. We did great!

My free T shirt!

Brad won 2nd place for his age bracket! We both had a great time and hope to try a few more races in the future!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! (Yes, I know it is only days before Christmas!) We had a great Halloween celebration. I only made one Halloween costume this year, which freed me up for some crafting. Most of the kids looked through our buckets of costumes and found something that they wanted to be.

Luke was a ninja

We had our annual spooky dinner on the Monday before Halloween. Here is a bread skeleton.
Witches fingers with blacken nails.

Bloody goblin toes and mashed up guts.

Our traditional putrid punch.

Ready to eat!

For dessert we had mummy cupcakes.

Annie had to make a pumpkin that looked like one of her favorite book characters. She chose the Pink Princess. I think it turned out pretty good!

The Relief Society hosted our ward Halloween party so I got to do lots of planning and preparing. It turned out really fun. We had a hotdog dinner, carnival games, and a trunk or treat.

Annie with her prize

Luke got a prize too!

We attended Boo at the Zoo again this year.

Playing games for prizes

The zoo is always decorated so fun!

Here are our pumpkins! This year we teamed up. Annie, Macey and I did this one.

Nelson and Luke's

Brad and Kambree's

Ready for Trick or Treating

We had dinner and went trick or treating with friends this year.

Checking out their loot

Here are my crafts!

Happy Halloween!