Tis the Season

Hooray! It's Blog updating time! :)

I guess we will start with Thanksgiving. We hosted David's family at our house. I wasn't feeling great, so I felt that my preparations weren't up to par. . . but I think everyone still had a good time. I KNOW the kids did! This kids love playing and dancing in our new room. The steps you see are some built in seating that David wanted to put in. I will eventually make some cushions to go on them. Maybe after Christmas. . . . Jenn was nice enough to bring her paper so we could check out the adds. There ended out not really being anything good enough to entice me to stay out all night and then work the next day! I went to bed and tried to get some sleep instead :) I did buy a couple of things online.. ..I couldn't skip shopping altogether! Here is an update for Luke's eagle project. First, let me say THANK YOU to everyone who is making this possible! The donations are going to a great cause, and we are having a blast getting everything together. The Saturday after Thanksgiving we were able to go set up a Christmas Tree in the common room of the shelter. Let me tell you, they have high tech security at the facility. Electric fences, Stone walls. . .. they really try to protect these women and children from the situations they are fleeing from.

I think the tree turned out cute!

Now that we have seen the room, I will probably go get a few more decorations to make it even more festive! well, on the Monday after thanksgiving, we decided it was time to decorate our tree as well. we still have our old tree with a bunch of mis-matched ornaments. . . maybe someday I will get a new tree and buy everything matching, but I couldn't get rid of our sentimental tree! it may not be the most beautifully decorated. ... but we love it anyway! Just a couple of random out of order pics here. After we decorated the tree for the shelter, we drove over to the malt shop for some shakes and hamburgers. elizabeth had to show off her new TOMS that she bought with the last of her birthday money. . . she waited and planned to buy these, and yes, she saved her money from September to buy them when we had employee shop day at Nordstrom. On sunday Kennedy and I were able to get a couple tickets from Dan and Jen to go to the Christmas devotional at the conference center in Salt Lake. It was both of ours first time being able to see the Conference center. It's a pretty amazing facility. we stopped at the Tabernacle afterwards and it seems to SMALL compared to the conference center! I remember going to see conference there once while I was in college. . . We were a lot closer to the prophet then! Kennedy was dissapointed she didn't get to shake the prophets hand, but besides that it was fun visiting temple square and seeing everything all lit up and decorated. and just a reminder as we all head into the hustle and bustle of the season:

Christmas is what we make of it. Despite all the distractions, we can see to it that Christ is at the center of our celebration. If we have not already done so, we can establish Christmas traditions for ourselves and for our families which will help us capture and keep the spirit of Christ.

President Monson