Swissmas and Temple Square

We don't get up to Temple Square to see the lights very often but this year I vowed to make it happen. We met Craig and Eve in Midway to see the 700 nativities they have on display from all over the world(awesome) and the gingerbread house competition (sweet). We decided to keep up with tradition and eat dinner at the Spaghetti Factory at Trolley Square. We go to the Orem restaurant every now and then but it's just not the same. The place was packed as usual so we waited almost an hour and during the wait this little girl was walking toward one of the benches outside of the restaurant. She tripped in just the right spot and went headfirst into the sharp iron leg of the bench. I was standing right there so I helped her up. It took a few seconds but by the time I got her over to her mom blood was squirting out of her head, running down her face and all over her sweater. I felt so bad!!! It took about ten minutes to get it to stop bleeding and she had a huge goose-egg and a star shaped cut on her forehead. And probably a really bad headache to go along with it. Poor girl.

Santa was there so the girls got to sit on his lap but this is as close as Josie would get to him. Maybe next year.

We finally made it out of SF and went to Temple Square that was just packed with people!!! Downtown has changed so much that we didn't know where to park. It took about 30 more minutes to find a parking place and when we got out of the car it was close to 8:00 at night. Now, if we lived in SLC it wouldn't have been a big deal but having to drive 2 hours to get home it becomes a concern. We took a brief stroll through the crowds around Temple Square and headed back to the car because it had started to rain and the kids gloves were all wet from sticking them in the fountains. Lindsey said she had to test it to see if it was real water. Oh,it was real...and cold! We got home really late that night but had a good time and got to feel some Christmas cheer.

Thanksgiving

As you can tell, I'm trying to catch up on recent events from the past two weeks. Three days after Josie's birthday was Thanksgiving so the family got together again to eat lots of food. It was a pretty quiet Thanksgiving. We couldn't go outside for our annual rabbit hunt/target practice because it was about 5 degrees outside...okay, that's an exaggeration, it was 15. So we just hung out at home, played some games, watched movies, went to grandma's house. Kind of like a typical Sunday but without the church thing. Dinner consisted of us, gma and gpa and Dave and his kids although they showed up just as we were finishing dinner and the kids had already eaten.

After dinner we played a couple rousing games of Battleship. Emily and I beat Jaxton and Gpa (without cheating) and then I beat Gpa! That was probably the highlight of Thanksgiving. Wait, I just remembered what the real highlight of Thanksgiving was. I made my own pie crust for the first time ever and it turned out great. However, the process was nerve-racking and I was anxious the rest of the day. At the dinner table everyone was saying how much they were looking forward to eating the pies but I was dreading it. I didn't know if they were going to taste good, if they had cooked all the way through or if the crust was going to be soggy on the bottom. I waited for pops and Davy to take the first bites and they were a hit! Success!! The hardest part though, was trying to get the dough off the counter. Any tips from you pie makers out there?

Josie's Birthday

A few days after Emily's crazy friend party, we celebrated Josie's 3rd birthday. It was a more subdued event but fun just the same. She got little princess dolls, a Dora guitar, some clothes and a book. She hasn't put those dolls down in two weeks! It makes me feel so good to give a gift that gets used a lot. That doesn't seem to happen very often with toys but these are a big success! Yeah!