Tis the Season for... Christmas Parties and Santa!

We have had family Christmas parties on the past two Sundays both with a special visitor, Santa :). Last Sunday we had just sat down to dinner when Santa Clause showed up. All the kids were very excited but I think most the adults were just hungry! Except for my dad who is more a kid at Christmas time than most of the actual kids. He is thinking of buying a suit and being one of "Santa's Helpers" next year. If you know my dad he would do a great job! Santa distributed presents, I got a $50 Gap card and Ryan got an itunes gift card. We were very excited. (Especially me...losing 39 lbs. (as of now) I am in need of some new clothes:) ).

After we opened presents and sang songs Ryan and I introduced a new game to my family of passing a present while the book 'The Night Before Christmas' is read and then yo get the present you end up with. It kind of back fired because everyone ended up with the present the started out with...and of course some kids cried because they didn't like their treat. It was a lovely idea:). Then Ryan and I recreated the Nativity Story using the grand kids. You can all imagine how great that was... When all was said and done we finished off the party with a little bubbly that Debbie (Ryan's mom brought) and we toasted to the Christmas Season and we all went around and shared one thing we are grateful for. For most of the kids that consisted of Play Station 3's and Wii's. But it was really nice to hear all the wonderful things that my family was grateful for. And my Grandma gave a very sweet testimony that we all enjoyed, she is a great lady! Over all the parties have been fun and we are happy to be around family for the Holidays this year!

Chaserbug

Since we have moved to Utah we don't have too much to blog about...I feel we are boring. We wake up super early and go to work and get back late, I could think of other things I would rather be doing like biking in AZ instead of worrying about crazy snow drivers, but we made our bed and now we are sleeping in it :). I just have a couple cute pictures of Chase that I think are really cute. Yes, he is a complete menis around here, chewing up Christmas ornaments, making all the other dogs hyper, knocking little kids over, taking whole sandwiches off peoples plates when they are not looking... he has turned crazy here. He goes non-stop all day so when we get home we take him in our room and he just crashes. It is the cutest thing, we can call his name and he doesn't budge! We have to physically move him off our bed so that we can get in. But since it is really cold in the basement where we sleep he likes to jump on our bed and sleep under the covers (until he is kicked off--we down sized beds moving here and there is just not room for a third being). He is really funny:

And Chase loves the snow. We like it because he has stopped shedding for the time being and is holding on to all that extra hair for warmth. He loves to run in the snow and go crazy! The other day we took him on a walk and I think he thought he was swimming because he would dive into the snow and burrow his face all the way tot he grass and run the whole length of the yard (I hope the neighbors didn't mind). We were laughing so hard, he did it over and over and over again.

Saturday was his birthday! He is officially 1 years old! He all hung out all day and he got two new toys :).

I know all this talk about our dog... we need a hobby! :)

The Square and Bucks

Well, before Pat left we all had to go to Temple Square and see the lights but coming straight from AZ we needed something to keep us toasty warm so we went to Starbucks. This is how the story goes.... we had 6 people in the car and 5 wanted hot chocolate. Ryan and I ran into the Sarbucks at the Gateway to get 5 peppermint white hot chocolates. I guess it was a lot easier said than done. We got two of our drinks and then two other people got their orders. Then they gave us 4 other drinks and said that one was a mistake but that we could take them all. So we loaded up the cup carrier with 6 drinks and headed to the car. Ryan thought it would be funny to try to beat me to the car so he ran off pretty quick but as I was walking I wanted to taste a hot one so I took a big sip and to my surprise it was not peppermint hot chocolate, yes it was a fat cup of hot coffee...with peppermint. As I ran out of Starbucks to catch Ryan I couldn't yell because I had a mouthful of coffee...Yuck. I sit it out in the nearest garbage and called for Ryan. All 4 drinks were coffee. Needless to say we ended up going back and some how leaving with 7 peppermint white hot chocolates. It was a long process but it kept us warm and we walked through the lights.Let me know if anyone else has gone to Temple Square this year because we thought that it was not as lit up as usual. It was still really cool but there were a lot of blank trees. In fact, Ryan and I went driving around last night to see Christmas and we drove down entire streets without lights. I think that people forgot to have that Christmas cheer shining bright for all to see. We were kind of disappointed and decided to come home. Although, the lights that did have lights looked really great! I really do enjoy being home for Christmas!


Yes, I do have sandals on...I didn't have any shoes. I never needed them in AZ :) But, I do now...moving was a good excuse to go shopping for shoes and warm clothes.