Christmas Cookies

It is not Christmas until you make sugar cookies.  I love making cookies and it is twice the fun now Grant is big enough to help.  I have to be in a good mood to do the cookie mess.  I know it will be a big fat mess and so if I am not prepared I get a little frustrated.  I wasn't prepared for this mess.  Look at all the sprinkles!  It was still fun!  I vacuumed 3 times and swept 4 times before I didn't get sprinkles on the bottom of my socks!

Traditions

I stole this from Jill.  Sorry Jill.  I thought it was cute and I actually read all of her answers.  I don't necessarily expect anyone to read all of mine. I am mostly writing this down for "documentation."  Documentation for what I don't know.  I just like to write things down.
1. Does your family send out Christmas cards? I really try, but it is so hard to keep track of everyone's address.
2. How soon do you start shopping? As soon as I can.  I started after Thanksgiving.  I shop online!
3. Who do you shop for? My parents, Kyle's mom, brothers, sisters, niece.  My family just started drawing names.  That makes it nice.

Decorations
4. Do you put up a Christmas tree? yes
5. If so, is it fake or real? always real, but I have thought about getting a fake one
6. Do you like tinsel? Not really.  I think it is pretty but I think it looks ugly on my tree.  Tinsel belongs...well somewhere else.
7. Do you use homeade or storebought ornaments? We have mostly store bought ones. I have an ornament collection that I enjoy.  I love themed trees but I can't bring myself to buy all the stuff to make a themed tree.  I also like to change me decorations a lot so it seems like a waste.
8. Do you put Christmas lights outside your house? I put some lights outside this year.  I should take a picture.  It is CUTE!
9. Do you put lights on the tree? Who doesn't put lights on their tree.  I like lights.
10. How about popcorn and cranberries? We did that once when I lived in Logan. It was fun, but as Jill said it was time consuming. I have thought about doing it again because it was really pretty.
11. Is there a wreath hanging on your door? Yes and I made it myself!

Christmas Eve
12. Do you celebrate it? Yes.  This is the night we spend with Kyle's family.  As a kid we always would read Christmas stories, drive around in our jammies to look at everyone's lights and eat donuts.  I always loved Christmas Eve.
13. Do you hang up your stocking? Yes.  My parents have a real fireplace and one day I will too.  I had to get creative with the stockings this year.
14. Does your family read "Twas the night before Christmas?" Yes and lots of other Christmas stories.

Favorite
15. Christmas Movie: Elf hands down!
16. Character from any Christmas Movie: Elf
17. Christmas Song: Carol of the Bells (especially when it is sung with a beautiful choir and bells)
18. Christmas Memory: I don't have a real specific memory that sticks out as my favorite.

This or That
19. Give or Receive? I really love giving gifts.  I like to find people meaningful gifts that they will appreciate.  I also am a good fan of gift cards.  I hate receiving when I have to tell people what it is I want.  I like surprises!
20. Eggnog or Cider? Yuck!  I like cider sometimes and I do like hot chocolate.  I still prefer my drinks cold.
21. Red or Green? It depends on what it is.  I like gold and silver in the mix too.
22. Ham or Turkey? Turkey, yes turkey.  I don't like the way most people cook ham.   It is like chewing on a shoe.
23. Star or Angel? Star.  Until this year. We don't have anything on the top of our tree.
24. White Lights or Colored Lights? It changes.  I went through a love the color lights phase.  Then I went through a white light phase.  I am leaning back into the colored light phase again.  I like red and white lights together.
25. Blinking Lights or Still Lights: Still. The people down the street have blinking lights on this huge tree.  Our family calls it the seizure tree.  It is kind of creepy.
26. Were you Naughty or Nice this year? Nice! I am never naughty.

Presents
27. What do you want for Christmas this year? Mostly things no one can buy.
28. When do you open your gifts? Kyle's grandparent's Christmas Eve, our family Christmas day and Kyle's immediate family Christmas day.  My family Christmas second.  (the day after Christmas) It is three days of wrapping paper delight!
29. What's the best gift you've ever gotten? Gosh, I don't know.  Kyle is usually thoughtful about what he gets me.  Lately, he has been a little lazy.
30. What's the worst gift you've ever gotten? $20 from The Stingy's.  It is a long story but basically it didn't mean anything.  They gave me money because they had to not because they wanted to.
31. Who gives you the most gifts? It isn't about the number of gifts.
32. Have you ever had a secret Santa? No, but I have been a secret Santa.  My family did secret stuff more than once growing up.
33. Do you like wrapping gifts? Yes! I usually wrap all of my mother-in-law's gifts for her.  It makes it hard though because then I know what everyone is getting, well except myself.  I always wanted to be a wrapper at a department store.  I thought it would be fun.

Random
34. Do you put change in those red buckets? I have.
35. Do you burn a yule log? Nope
36. Can you name all the reindeer? dasher, dancer, prancer, vixen, comet, cupid, donner, blitzen, and rudolph. Why does everyone forget Rudolph he is the most important!
37. Do you bake cookies? On yes!  Wait until you see the pictures of our cookie baking experience this year.  It was fun!
38. Have you ever seen your mommy kissing Santa Clause? Nope.
39. Have you ever gotten a kiss under the mistletoe? Yes, but it is kind of silly.  Kissing under a weed.
40. Do you go caroling? No, but it sounds fun.
41. Do you drive around and look at the Christmas lights? Yes.  It was one of my favorite things to do with my family.
42. Have you ever left Santa cookies? We always left him donut because we thought he would be sick of cookies.  We also left Rudolph a carrot.
43. Have you ever sat on Santa's lap? Many times.
44. Who do you celebrate Christmas with? Family
45. Where do you celebrate Christmas? Everywhere!
46. Have you ever had a white Christmas? Uh..I live in Utah of course there have been many a white Christmases.  Last year we got snowed in.  That kind of stunk.
47. What part of Christmas do you look most forward to? Spending time together as an entire family.  That gets harder and harder every year.
48. Have you ever had your picture taken with Santa? Yes.  I don't know about professionally but I have many picture my mom has taken.
49. Does your family always take a picture at Christmas? Ha!  Yeah right!  The last official family picture we had done was when I was in 7th grade.  We had my cousin take a picture of all of us sitting in the back of my brother's truck before he left on his mission.  Oh, I guess our wedding pictures could count.  Except Trace was missing at my wedding.  Kyle was missing in some of Trace's wedding pictures.  They aren't my favorite family pictures any way.
50. anything else? Kyle and I started a family tradition of reading the story of the birth of Christ every Christmas morning from the scriptures.  We read it while we are still in bed.  It is our way of thinking of Christ first.  Seeing as he is the reason for the season!

Christmas Tree Cutting

My family has always had a tradition of going up Morgan canyon on "black friday" to cut down our Christmas tree.  When Kyle and I got married we continued to go up with my family to get our tree.  It has sort of become our family's tradition as well.  Last year Grant did not enjoy Christmas tree hunting.  This year was different...

Grant thought it was so cool to stomp around in the snow with his snow boots.  This is the first time he has ever worn snow boots.  He thought it was great.  He walked kind of funny because he had to watch his boots stomp the snow.

Grant insisted on helping "gaggy" cut down the tree.  Grant always likes to do whatever Kyle does.  Grant is getting to the age where he is starting to think he is really big and can do things by himself.  Hence the reason Grant is trying to saw the tree down with a saw ALL BY HIMSELF!  Luckily, we are still able to convince him that he can have a turn and then we get a turn.  I hope that doesn't ever change.

Ever sense I took a photography class a few months ago.  I have looked through my camera a lot differently. I thought these shots of Grant and his Daddy turned out pretty good.  There is no doubt that these too are father and son.  Aren't they cute!  I have such darling boys!

Dear Santa

Grant is still a little young this year to truly get the meaning of Christmas.  It is still fun because he is so excited about everything.  He loves the Christmas tree and the lights in everyone's yard.  My mom always used to read us Christmas stories the whole month of December.  I have collected my favorites over the years.  Grant and I have been reading Christmas stories for two weeks now and he loves Santa.
Last night, we were reading a Santa story and looking at all the presents the elves were making.  We saw firetrucks, cars, ball, elephants, baby dolls,  penguins, baseball bats, and many more.  We talked about how the elves were loading all of the presents on Santa's sleigh so Santa could bring them to every good little girl and boy.  He was really excited and so...

I asked Grant,

"what do you want Santa to bring you?"

His reply,

"a tissue."

Isn't that the cutest thing ever?  It is so sweet and innocent.  I have to share it with everyone.  (I also think it is pretty obvious that we have had colds for more than a week now.)

30 Thankful Days

Alright so if you read this blog regularly you may be wondering what happened to the 30 days of gratitude.  I slacked off quite a bit and I apologize for that.  I have to say that doing this has helped me realize how much I have to be thankful for.  Most days I had a hard time picking just one thing to write about.  Towards the end I realized how much I have and so instead of spending time on my blog I was spending time with my family.  We have so much we take for granted.
I have a wonderful job and great co-workers who put up with my "slackiness" and "dinginess."  I am so grateful for the other SLP's I work with.  I feel like we are such an awesome team.  I love going to the office when they are around.
I am grateful for online shopping.  I have done a ton of shopping online this year.  I have found some fantastic deals online.  I have saved money, time, gas, sanity, and still got everything I wanted!  Yeah for online shopping!
I love this time of year!

When I Grow a Foot or Two

I found some darling little boy ties at The Children's Place around Thanksgiving time.  I think Grant looks so handsome!  Kyle found one of his missionary badges to complete the outfit!  Time goes by so fast and it won't be long before he is really going to be going on a mission.  My little pumpkin!

Sense and Sensibility

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I have no idea why this is considered this book a classic.  I felt like I was reading teenagers' text messages from the 19th century.  It was ridiculous!  I felt like the characters had no personality and were only skin deep.

I thought this was one of the worst books I have ever read.  I still can't believe I made myself read the whole thing.  I think I was hoping it would get better some how.  It didn't!


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