Christmas Review

Merry Christmas!

23!

(For this post I'm choosing to have number dyslexia, but that's how old I FEEL...so it IS partly right.)

The benefit of having a birthday on a Friday is that the whole weekend becomes an ongoing celebration. On Friday, we went to dinner with Kristin and Preston. The food was terrible (ate at Buffalos because we had a gift certificate---DON'T EAT THERE), but the company was great...of course. We came back home and ate my yummy carrot birthday cake (Nothing Bundt style) that Nathan made. I know...my husband is wonderful and I'm so lucky to have him! On Saturday, we went to Cedar City and had dinner at Rusty's...soooo good! We had quite a party with my parents along with four of my siblings and their spouses. We were all brave and made it up the canyon through the blizzard. It was even braver of us (probably stupid) to drive home after dinner. We should have stayed the night, but we felt like we needed to get back for church at 9:00 am, so we drove home at a snail's pace through the snowstorm. We've driven through several bad snowstorms before, but this trip was ultra-stressful with a baby on board. McKay actually slept the whole trip home, but I was pretty anxious until we made it to clear roads.

I won't list all of my fabulous gifts, but I will show a picture of one of my favorites (from Kristin and Preston):

That's right...it's the Alamo...all lit up for Christmas! I LOVE the Alamo and I'm tempted to leave this out all year. I can't believe how closely this resembles the real thing...right down to the doors.

Thanks to everyone who made my birthday so special! Oh, and my sister made me cry with this. (Sisters are the best!)

One Christmas Party Down!

Last night we had a little Christmas party for the Young Women in my ward. It shouldn't have been as much as work it ended up being, but it was fun. I hope the girls had a good time. Here's what I made them for their Christmas gift (the tag reads, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Do You Know How Loved You Are?"):


We had some activities throughout the year that were based on a star theme (Girls' Camp's theme was A Wonderful World Starring You), and we hope this gift will help them to remember some of what we talked about.

So now I'm done with this project, I can work on the mountain of other projects that have piled up. What am I doing still sitting here?

A Tag: 7 Random Things

7 Things I Can Do:
1. Find a bargain.
2. Refurbish furniture.
3. Remember phone numbers.
4. Teach piano lessons.
5. Assemble things (furniture, cakes, jewelry, recipes, flower arrangements and crafts).
6. Tell Nathan what to do. :) (He would say I'm an expert!)
7. Be happy and grateful for all I've been given.

7 Things I Can't Do:
1. Feel my baby toe on my left foot.
2. Get the insurance company to pay for one of the remaining claims from my back surgery. (So frustrating...it's been over a year-and-a-half! I'm going to have to get Gephardt!)
3. Watch movies starring Barbra Streisand or Susan Sarandon (except for Enchanted).
4. Eat pizza or ice cream. (Counting down the days.)
5. Kiss my baby enough.
6. Stop downloading free digital scrapbooking stuff.
7. Read the same book twice. (With the exception of the BOM, of course.)

7 Things I Always Say:
1. "I love you!"
2. "Is that so?"
3. "Interesting."
4. "You've got to be kidding me!"
5. "Don't bite Mama!"
6. "What should we have for dinner?"
7. "How does my hair look?"

7 Things I Always Eat:
1. Almonds
2. Oatmeal
3. Bananas
4. Turkey Burgers
5. Dreyers Fruit Bars
6. Chips and Guacamole
7. Potatoes
(Someday I'll eat like a regular person again.)

Not tagging anyone else...Merry Christmas!

What? It's December?!?!

I was going to write a list of all the things I did last week, but I'm afraid it would take me too much time and too much brain power to try to remember it all. To say that it was a busy week would be an understatement! We were so blessed to have the Wrigleys (Jared, Sarah, Logan and soon-to-be-born) come stay with us for most of the week. We always have tons of fun when we get together. We didn't have much time to play around though...it seemed like we were always coming and going or cooking and washing dishes. Somewhere in the middle of it all we had Thanksgiving at Nathan's parents' house with many extended family members. I made three pies (of seventeen), gravy, cranberry sauce and eight dozen of these (this is the only picture taken by me on Thanksgiving):

We usually try to split up the day between both our families, but this year we broke with tradition since there was way too much work to do, so we just did the Miller thing. I did manage to sneak away for a couple of hours to play some Guitar Hero with my 17-year-old nephew, Christopher (who totally creamed me by the way). I guess it was to be expected since I haven't played in almost a year (my hands were numb for the last several months of my pregnancy). I'm going to have to break out my Guitar Hero to practice up for a Christmas rematch. He did warn me a couple of months ago by saying, "I just want to let you know that I can pretty much beat you now at Guitar Hero." I admit, he's pretty good and can play the hardest on expert, but just you wait, Mr. Christopher, just you wait!

In another break with tradition...I did not go shopping on Black Friday. The only thing that I felt like I missed out on was the special sister time that usually takes place that day at 4:00 am. Maybe next year?!?! I did go shopping on Saturday afternoon though, the stores were not nearly as crowded as I had anticipated and I did get a few great deals.

I broke down and went to see Twilight on Friday. Hopefully I waited long enough to not be considered an obsessed fan. I did like the movie...didn't think it was the best movie ever, but it was good. In a couple of supposed-to-be-serious moments, I couldn't help but giggle at the way a few of the lines were delivered. I think I'll wait until its DVD release to see it again.

Even though we were pretty busy, I did enjoy Thanksgiving and did find time to reflect on all I'm grateful for. I won't list everything (see first paragraph), but I am most grateful for my angel miracle baby who has filled my life with so much love and joy. I have "thanksgiving" in my heart every day for this precious gift Heavenly Father gave to me. I'm sooo looking forward to Christmas this year I can't even stand it!

McKay Goes Retro

I'd been meaning to take some pictures of McKay wearing this outfit for a while. It belonged to Nathan when he was a baby...I think he wore it when he was a year old. It is actually in pretty good condition considering how old it is. I'm glad I decided to take these pictures today...it was a little too short!