DECEMBER 2018

 Please click on this link if you want to see even more photos from this month.
We started off the month by attending some BYU Women's Volleyball championship games.

We really appreciated Braden and McKenna for taking us the first night and then giving us tickets to the second night!
Pretty amazing athletes!

That first weekend we did our annual SOMETHING TO DO AS A FAMILY ACTIVITY IN DECEMBER.

This year the kids wanted to check out the NORTH POLE EXPRESS based on the book and movie called THE POLAR EXPRESS we read each year when they were little.

We bundled up in our JAMMIES and went to Heber to catch the train along with a bunch of families that had young children...

We just had some old people...

And some younger people...

..and some more younger people.

Oh, and ELFis Presley joined us on our train ride...can you see he is singing BLUE CHRISTMAS while they shine blue lights on him?


After visiting the North Pole...someone special got on the train to come greet us.

He really liked Scott's pants!

We had HOT COCOA of course!!!

And before we left home, the girls made cool "BELIEVE necklaces with a silver bell.

One morning Scott and I went to sweep up drywall dust at the house and came out looking like this!  Can you see the dust on my eyelashes and on the top of my hair?





And on Scott's eyebrows and each hair...it is coated!

OK,  we have a CHEF in our Young Single Adult Ward that does snacks or a meal twice a month after Church.
For December he went all out on CUPCAKES
These would be perfect for a little girl FROZEN PARTY, right?
He made each snowflake with melted white chocolate!

And the orange cupcakes we decorated with chocolate frosting an orange stick and mandarin orange slice...YUM!  My favorite!

These spice cupcakes had cream cheese frosting and little Christmas trees he also made from melted green chocolate and sprinkles...great ideas!

Scott got to do an interview with our friends from our mission...Elder Durrant, Elder Callister,  Elder Ashton.  All served in the SW area or in the area presidency.
Fun for Scott to reunite with them.

It MADE OUR MONTH to participate in our FAMILY SERVICE PROJECT going to Breanna's school to deliver the stockings you all helped provide.


It was really fun for me to have Scott and Michelle come along this year.  This is the third year we have done this.







Here is the group of ELVES along with a couple of classmates.







A short video of handing out the stockings.

The excitement of even a colored mechanical pencil...seriously, they were so excited!

 And they were thrilled with the BEANIE BABIES!
Not to mention even the scent of the shampoo...so excited with every little thing!

They could not put the Beanies down!

Here we are with our cute Breanna teacher!!!

And Michelle checking out the cool net chairs in the classroom!  Spoiled kiddos!

This month we got to go down to Payson to the temple there for a sealing.

Fun to see the nativity sets that the Church places at temples in December.

The cute family that was sealed, Alex and Mariah Newton and their son.






And another visit from a cute RM, Alisa Hansen with husband Tyrel and her two little boys, Lincoln and Thatcher.



So...here is how Scott gets up the SLEEPYHEADS on Christmas Morning!
(Video of him playing his trumpet!)

And then, we go on a SANTA HAT WALK 
It's a family tradition!

It was SO NICE OUT that we ditched our coats in no time!

 We loved having Carole, John and Lori join us for Christmas lunch and gift opening!  So glad they would take the time to visit!

Lori made the cutest REINDEER treats for us using Oreo Truffles as the heads.

We were thrilled to get a call from our dear friends the Gutierrez family from Arizona.  They were up visiting their daughter who attends BYU.  They brought us amazing TAMALES as a Christmas gift!

Here is how our house was looking on Christmas Day.  All the hardi is on and primed and the stucco for the stone is all up and ready to go down below.

And a couple days later...this is how it was starting to look.

I noticed they had not put in trim below the windows and really wanted that done so they came out the next morning and...

Voila, trim under the windows just how I wanted it!
You really have to be on top of things each day in a home build.

And, you have to be on top of things if you go shopping with Susan and I...because we are well trained shopping animals on the hunt for a bargain!







OK...so our kids have started "DIBS-ING" things for when we DIE.  A little morbid.

One of the first things to be "dibsed" is our COMPLETE SET OF HERSHEY COLLECTIBLE ORNAMENTS.  Here is the first year, 1986...




...and the last year, 2007.  We photographed them in order so we would know which ones are for which year.
Pretty fun tradition!  22 years worth of ornaments that they put out 2 for each year!

Our Post-Christmas Neighborhood Party is a lot of fun...here is just one of the WHITE ELEPHANTS that we took to the party, these masks for some TV/Computer game.








The projects have begun, well, they never stop... but one for the new house.

I am painting my IKEA kitchen island cabinets NAVY BLUE.

You see the pray primed doors in the background here and how the navy looks when it is wet, like ROYAL BLUE!  It is so scary painting dark colors!

Another project is my kitchen window valance.  I found the PERFECT fabric online that has gray, navy and off white.















Now it is a faux Roman Blind!

And a project inspired by a sequin pencil case in Breanna's class...
A huge wall hanging of reversible sequin fabric for my new preschool area!  So fun to play with!

We now have a STEAMER thanks to Braden and McKenna.  It works like a charm and will save the day when I put up curtains from ceiling to floor that are 11 feet tall for the new house!


HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!
HAPPY NEW YEAR PROJECTS TO YOU ALL!

NOVEMBER 2018

Wow!  November was super busy!

We  loved getting some new family pics from Jenna, Ty and the kids including little Cassidy!

THANK YOU!!!

Can you tell how much this little girl adds to this family?  COLOR to name one!

We had several returned missionary events this month including this reception in Provo.  Eric Cassity.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!  Our traditional hike was to ROCK CANYON today.  It is a good local hike.

We hiked up past third bridge until we got to some icy areas and turned back.

It was so pretty!  It was cold, but steep enough to keep us warm.


And, we got back down JUST IN TIME because it started to drizzle on our way back and then POURED once we got home!

We love our Thanksgiving traditions that include getting together with family to do a service project for Breanna's school class.
First with JAMES family...

...and then with TAYLOR family.

Everybody chips in and provides the stockings and all the fixings to go inside!

Including BEANIE BABIES this year which we know will be a big hit!

Another tradition is our THANKFUL TREE that we took up to Taylors for the first time in many years.

Lots of years of things we are grateful for!

Cute Lily with the pilgrim and Native American puppets we brought up for her to color.

And, another tradition that weekend is BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING!

Although we do not go out as early...we went Friday night.
Scott found this UGLY sweater!  Abominable!!

We loved having BREANNA and ELLIOT spend the night with us Friday night after our shopping together with BRADEN AND McKENNA.
It just feels good to have kids in the house!
We look forward to every chance we have to be with them all!

Another tradition we have in our family is to make a handprint of each little grandchild at their first Christmas time.


Each one was a different age, and some did foot instead of hand, but we love them so much!

And we will add Cassidy when Jenna sends me back the kit I am sending her to make one for her!











We had a sealing to go to at Mt Timpanogos Temple last weekend and it was just so lovely outside!!!

Another of our great RM friends Joseph Barley.















OK...here is the house progress this month.  It seems like it has been a really really busy house month!

The exterior is finally getting something going.

Here is it all weather-proofed.  Front steps are poured and porch was poured in October.

This was a visiting FLICKER that was trying to get out of the windows even though the opening into the garage through the roof area in the kitchen was still wide open.

We got insulation and then drywall in the upstairs.

And the downstairs was completely framed.

At this point, we decided to complete the basement at the same time as the rest of the house.  I got a permit and we then scheduled it to be completely wired and plumbed.  We had already done all the heating and cooling prep with the rest of the house. Upstairs with drywall going in.

Front sidewalk going down the slope.  We chose to curve the walk and we really like it.

Nice to have walls at the stairs on both sides now.

The roof was completed.

We had been told that Black Friday Month was the best time to buy appliances so we hit up Home Depot one night and camped out until the deed was done!
The cute sales girl worked with us to get the best deal on getting our 8 appliances (2 kitchens) and it was so good to get done!
We thought we would just check on our quartz countertop and found it was the best time to purchase that as well!  3 1/2 hours at Home Depot!!!  Best date night ever???!!!

The next day we went up to IKEA to purchase the kitchen we had designed earlier that month...well, I had been designing for months, but we had come in with the IKEA designer and tweaked to to finalize both kitchens and the laundry room.
(BTW, that is my farmhouse sink I am looking at in the photo)
We do the most fun things for our dates lately!

A couple hours later we had a receipt taller than me and had ordered all 279 boxes of components to make up those 3 rooms in the house.
Yes, it was an IKEA kitchen sale that month and we wanted to get in before it was over!  Super nice people helped us with everything we have had to plan and order.

Scott wanted to prove that we had truly been to NARNIA...so here I am coming out of the wardrobe!  Back to reality.

Some exterior views.  The primed hardiboard is going up all around the house.

Stone work may have to wait a while...it is so cold now.  And, we have to wait to paint until it is warmer as well.
Basement is insulated and getting drywall completed this week!
On to all the finishing touches!!

We do not always work on house stuff...we really enjoyed going to some BYU Women's volley ball games last weekend as well.
Braden and McKenna took us Friday night to see a team from Long Island NY (Stony Brook) and BYU swept the first 3 games for a win!

The next night they had tickets they could not use so we went to see BYU play Utah.

What you may not see in this photo is that BYU had won the first 2 games, and was just starting the third.  They won this game for another sweep and go on to the NCAA sweet 16 this weekend here in Provo against Florida.  Fun outings for a change of pace!  THANKS McKenna and Braden!

Here it is!  All 279 boxes, 3 pallets worth of IKEA product was delivered last Saturday!
It was an inventory paradise all Saturday afternoon!!

Scott took Monday and Tuesday off to work on building cabinet boxes.
I helped a bit in-between meetings and brought him dinner from my Provo Power Board meeting afterwards.  Magelbys chicken cordon bleu a la IKEA.

He rocked it out and got like 18 cabinets done that day...maybe more.

Here is just one view of the cabinets that night.
He completed the rest the next day, all 3 rooms worth!  I was shocked!  I thought it would take us like 2 weeks working every night, so this was awesome!
We start the install tomorrow with our finish carpenter!

Last night we went up to SLC to the annual Deseret Management Corporation Christmas dinner.  Lovely venue in the Joseph Smith building and good friends from Church News and Deseret News joined us.  We meet with many of the General Authorities of the Church who are also invited.