Fun weekend!

On with the fun stuff... On Saturday, December 20th we headed down to Alesa's (after a big snowstorm the day before delayed us). We spent the day with Alesa, shopped at the mall, and celebrated Hailey's second birthday. (Don't know why we don't have any pictures of Hailey's celebration, but we don't.) We kind of celebrated Alesa's birthday too and then went down to Temple square (with Alesa & family, my mom, and Mauri- Justin's sister- and boys) to see the lights. They were beautiful as always but it was DANG cold. (I think it was only about 9*) We dressed warm and had hand warmers, but brrrr! The kids were troopers but by the end the little ones had enough!

We came home late that night. On Sunday we had a busy, fun day. Katie and I got up first thing and made a big patch of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, a batch of homemade oreos and mint chocolate chunk brownies. Katie is getting to be such a great cook! It was fun to work with her.

We went to church where I taught Young Women (I had a good object lesson on being dependable, maybe I'll share later), Doug taught Gospel Doctrine and Doug and Katie sang in the Christmas Sacrament Program. My mom, Juli and Travis surprised us and showed up to the Christmas program.

Right after church we went straight out to the Austins. Leslie and family and K.C and Andi were up and Jamie and Brian had made the trek from Denver. We had such a FUN party. This replaced our traditional Christmas Eve get together and I have to say, I LOVED it! It was so much fun and we weren't stressed about getting done and getting home and there wasn't a lot of pressure. We had a yummy traditional turkey dinner. And we played "ring on a string", even Bevan got into it.

We played Apples to Apples (love this game) and exchanged gifts with the cousins. Everyone (except K.C & Andi) stayed the night, we stayed up late playing games and then the next morning we decorated gingerbread houses

and played all day until 5:00 when I had to come home to do a zone. Grandma Austin gave us all PJ's and Leslie's kids gave the little kids Play Doh- it was a hit! and kept the kids entertained for hours.

Thanks for the great time guys! Can't wait until next year! (Maybe we should do it before

then...)

Bevan & Will- they are starting to have so much fun playing together.

Katie and her "best cousin", Kali. There were many tears shed this week because Kali had to go back home to Colorado.