Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Here's a picture recap of our Christmas this year. 

We were all so excited for school to be out for Christmas break. Hurray! That Sunday we had a special Christmas sacrament meeting. We invited our sweet Ukrainian neighbors to come hear the children sing their Christmas songs. They are the best.

Grandma Suzy came on the 23rd. We had our Christmas Eve devotional (a day early because Paul worked Christmas Eve) and watched White Christmas. 

We had fun on Christmas Eve making sugar cookies. Mom dressed up as Santa and we stopped by Aunt Sarah's to say hello to her gang. We had a spread of snacky foods and watched Ben Hur. The kids unwrapped some new jammies and we left cookies out for Santa! 

Here are some pictures of Christmas day. Santa brought beyblades for all the kids and they were really excited about that. It's so fun to watch them run up the stairs in the morning, so excited! We had the sister missionaries and another family over for a roast beef dinner later that day. 

Olivia and JP came down for New Years Eve and the annual Garbett family party! Jessi got engaged at that party and we are so excited for them! 

We celebrated New Years Eve with some fun activities, plus we went to see the new Star Wars. We decorated the New Years tree, watched the 2019 family slideshow and played games. The next day we got enough snow to go sledding hurray! It was the perfect holiday. 

Mom and I got to go to the temple together while she was here and that was great. It was good to be there together and feel the peace that comes from the Savior. 

Oh What Fun!

We made a little advent calendar for this month. We have Light the World ideas for each day and some Christmas activities here and there too. Here's a bunch of pictures of the fun we've had all month. 

The kids sang for our ward Christmas party. 

Olivia came up earlier this month for our first ever annual Christmas baking weekend. It was a great time! We made black eyed susans, chocolate peppermint kiss cookies, buddy the elf mix, toffee, and pretzel kisses. 

We went to the Festival of Trees in Sandy while she was here too. So many beautiful trees!

This is one activity we won't be doing next year, nativity scenes out of candy. Not kid friendly and not easy. The stable collapsed about 10 times and the kids weren't able to build much. 

We went on a family date so the kids could spend the money they've saved for Christmas gifts. We went to Pizza Pie Cafe too and Santa was there! What luck! Susie didn't really want to sit on his lap (non-believer) until she saw the free candy cane :) 

We also did some Christmas baking at my best friends house. Chante and I made more toffee and peppermint patties. 

Susie had a piano recital. Samantha came and even brought her flowers. She did so good! Samantha is pregnant, due in May. She's having a little boy and we're so excited.

Paul and I scored tickets to the Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert. It was beautiful!

Christmas party with friends 

Painting nutcrackers with the kids

Christmas light drive and hot chocolate 

Happy Thanksgiving

There was some bad snowy weather around Thanksgiving so we weren't sure we were going to make it to Cedar City. Luckily we did! We were grateful to spend some time with family that we love. I loved hanging out with my nephew Ty. He is so sweet with the kids and they love spending time with him. He has such a good heart and I love being around him. I was in charge of rolls and pies. I made a mixed berry and my first ever lemon meringue (Grandpa's favorite). 

We went and saw Frozen 2, which was actually kind of a bust :/ Clark was excited though. He loves Frozen and he had been talking about seeing the new one with Grandma for weeks. 

Susie was pretty excited that she beat her uncle in Connect 4. It was great to spend some time with my brother. 

We helped mom put up a few Christmas decorations while we were there. It was a great little trip.