Happy Birthday Bryce!!!

This year we had a great week celebrating Bryce's birthday. He of course had to work on his birthday, but we celebrated as soon as he got home. For me it was a day of cooking, I was also cooking for my dinner group. I made Bryce's favorites: peppered steak, mesquite chicken, oven roasted potatoes, corn, berry jello salad, and garlic bread. When Bryce got home from work he was EXCITED to eat, especially the peppered steak. After dinner the kiddos and I gave Bryce his birthday gifts: the last two Harry Potter movies, a sports coat, slacks, and socks. Bryce was in need of some clothing items for work.

Tuesday night Chandra, Tonya, and I planned a birthday party for our hubbies. All three of their birthdays are within a week of each other, and we all did not realize it until this year. We had a great time eating cake and ice-cream with great friends!

Dustin, Collin, and Bryce...


Friday night Bryce and I went on a date, woohoo! We went to dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant, Chiang Mai and then to a movie, The Three Musketeers. We had a great night being together, just the two of us.




Happy Birthday Bryce, we love and appreciate you!

Ann & April turn 30...

Between us five girls mentioned in previous blogs many times, three of them have birthdays in December just a couple days apart. This year it was Ann, April, and Mary's 30th birthday. Mary (the one who lives in Australia) was unable to celebrate with us, but we missed her dearly. The plan was to eat dinner at Burger and Brew, enjoy cake and ice-cream, and then from there everyone could do what they wanted. Kristy and I went shopping a few days prior to get some fun things for the girls to wear during their night of celebrating. We all had a great time together. I took lots of pictures, but will only share my favorites.





After dinner, Bryce and I met up with his family and went to a Steelheads hockey game, we had a great time.

The 10 Virgins

I was asked months ago if I would be willing to participate in December's Relief Society weekday meeting, helping to retell the parable of the 10 virgins. I agreed to, but was quite nervous. I was assigned to be the 7th virgin, representing sins and pleasures of the world.
Each virgin was assigned a room to decorate, fitting their assigned virgins' personality. We each prepared a four minute script describing the virgins' lives and the choices each made before/after the bridegroom came. We all dressed in character and remained in character during the entire program.
Once the program started each virgin, in character with oil lamp in hand sat with the others as guests. There were three narrators who started the evening off prefacing the parable with various scriptures and information about the artist and how the idea came about in bringing this parable to life. At one point during the opening presentation the 10 virgins stood up and walked to their rooms. Meanwhile the other sisters broke up into five groups and visited each virgin in their decorated room round-robin style. The groups rotated between the foolish virgins first, and ended with the wise virgins. By the end each group had the opportunity to get to know each virgin a little better by listening to their story. We all met back together and ended with the three narrators sharing more scriptures and quotes.
Overall this was a wonderful experience, and I'm so thankful for the opportunity I had to be apart of it.

There is one lady missing, but I still wanted to take a picture of those who participated...

Ward Christmas Party!

Our ward Christmas party was AWESOME this year. We had so much fun with our new ward family. For dinner we had ham and potatoes cooked in the dutch oven, salad, rolls, and dessert. Kyra on her own tried the ham and loved it, yeah! After we had been eating for a bit a "special" visitor arrived, Santa. All the kiddos formed a line to sit on Santa's lap, get their picture taken, and receive a special treat. Kyra loved Santa this year compared to previous years, it was really sweet. We ended with the primary kiddos singing songs and acting out the true story of Christmas, it was perfect.

Kyra looking at baby Jesus in the manger, so precious...

Christmas Gift Exchange...

My BEST girlfriends and I celebrated Christmas early this year due to December being a super busy month. We went to dinner at our favorite restaurant, Yen Ching, exchanged gifts, and went to a fantastic movie, The Help.
Last year while celebrating Christmas it was suggested to start having monthly "girls night" for year 2011. Before we were getting together with families included, but realized we were not getting our girl time to chit chat, laugh, and just be girls. Anyways it was a HUGE success, and we made some great memories... eating dinner at Ann's house and chillaxin, going to McCall, eating out at The Creperie, eating great stir-fry and prepping calendars to make for our mamas, making our calendars and eating dessert, going to Something Borrowed and eating out at Legends, craft night with a yummy dessert, writing letters to Mary the Great, being girls and relaxing, and celebrating Christmas together. We always have the best time together no matter what we're doing. I look forward to what 2012 will bring.
Below there are only four of us in the photo, if we were ALL together there would be five, but Mary lives in Australia. We miss her everyday, especially when we get together for "girls night". Love and miss you always Mary!