Catching Up Part 3 (The Holidays)

Here's a post to get you back in the spirit of the season. Enjoy!

My parents preparing Thanksgiving dinner. My dad is always in charge of the whipped cream. He's a pro!


My mom is an amazing hostess as you can see.




Cody watching the movie upside down for some reason.


Our attempt at a family picture. Happy Thanksgiving!


Cody helping Dada with the Christmas lights. Yikes!


We had to wait in line to see Santa for over an hour. That was interesting. But in the end, Cody really seemed happy about it, and that's all that matters...right?


Our one and only snowman this year. The eyes nose and mouth are made up of little toy dinosaurs. I got creative. :)


Cute little cousins!


Baby Sammy with Poppy.


Starting the tradition of making sugar cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. That was an interesting experience. Next year I think I'll just have Cody help me decorate them.



Eggs Benedict for Christmas breakfast. Yum!


Cody's train set he got from G'ma and G'pa. He loves it!


Wow! A decent family picture. Shocker! Merry Christmas!


Starting the New Year's Eve night off with a Buzz Lightyear bang!


Steven's brother and his wife spent New Year's Eve night at our house so Cody got his first official sleep over.



The New Year's Eve gang...well what was left of them. I completely forgot to take pictures of the whole crowd while they were still there. Steven's entire side of the family spent the evening celebrating with us. It was such a fun night. We had amazing food, played Guitar Hero, had a fire going outside, and rang in the new year with sparkling cider and everything. What more could you want? Happy New Year!


Happy Holidays!!

Catching Up Part 2 (Samantha's Blessing)

Samantha was blessed on November 14th. The day went wonderfully well other than a few mishaps. Her dress stayed nice and clean the whole time she wore it; she slept through the entire blessing; Steven, Cody, Samantha, and myself were all healthy; and my amazing mom provided all the food for the luncheon afterwards leaving me with little to no worry about that. The mishaps included Steven's mom not being able to make it because she was too sick, my dad not being able to make it to the luncheon because of other Sunday duties, my brother unfortunately was out of town during it, one of my sisters and one of my brothers live out of town and couldn't make it, and Cody (the little stinker) decided that right when the blessing began would be a really good time to start acting up and being really disruptive so that I wouldn't be able to hear most of it. :( Yep...it's true. I pretty much missed the whole thing. However, we know a lady who was kind enough to come to the blessing and short-hand the whole thing. She did this with Cody's blessing too. So, I will at least be able to read the blessing in it's entirety. Thank heavens for her! I am so grateful to Steven for being worthy to give the blessing. He is an amazing husband and father!