Christmas Time is Here

We have only a few days left til Christmas, and I'm ultra excited.

So far here's our list of holiday doings:

We sent the Christmas cards.  I think we got like 7 back.  I won't take it personally... (Don't other people like spending a million dollars on family photos/outfits and then another small fortune on cards and stamps? Ok, fine.) 

We baked and delivered treats to our neighbors.  Growing up we always delivered a treat to like half of the ward, and we usually had some sort of clever saying to go with it.  That was a requirement back in the day for some reason.  Funny story--I remember one year, we needed Sprite for our clever gift's saying, and the store was out of Sprite (this makes it sound like this was 1965, but it wasn't).  Instead, my mom bought "Moon Mist," which it turns out is highly caffeinated and we had to hand-select which neighbors would get it and not be offended.  Hahahaha.  Also, another funny story.  In my youth we once accidentally delivered a treat to the wrong house behind us and I'm pretty sure my parents still exchange gifts with these Asian neighbors each year, now 20 years later.

This year's sampler plate in all its glory.  It was one of my best plates yet.

We took Ivy to see the lights a few times, which she loved.  She's good at saying, "lights."

We've been to several parties including a seemingly insurmountable sushi night one hour away with our friends, in which Ivy was actually well behaved.  It was truly shocking.  Also I think I liked the sushi?  I've never eaten something where I thought, "Well this tastes good, but I feel mildly uncomfortable," but I'd say that's a successful first time.

Ivy met Santa, although she really did not realize he was a "special" person.  To her, it was just another man she's never seen and probably doesn't like.

We decorated!  I pretty much blew the entire decorating budget on the new 12-foot Christmas tree, but we weasled up a few other tiny things as well.  I'm slowly realizing that with a great larger house, comes great responsibility and a million decorations in order to look very festive.

We had our neighbors over for dinner (Ivy's babysitters and their family).  Scott and I rarely host non-family things so this was a fun thing to do. We love love love our babysitters!  And now I feel like I sort of know them the tiniest bit better after 6 months of saying "hello,...well goodbye" almost every day.

Other than that, we've just shopped and taught Ivy how to say, "ho ho ho."  It's been a great December so far.  On to birthdays and Christmas.

Thanksgiving

Aaaaand I have not thought much about blogging lately.   Is this what happened to everyone else in like 2009?  Noooo.  Must.keep.this.going. 

This year's Thanksgiving was pretty great, however I did spend most of the weekend with a pretty bad cold.  Leave it to this family to have one person be sick for every major holiday!  I'm almost relieved it was me though because sick Ivy is just so sad, and I somehow have a lot less patience when Scott is sick (despite my knowledge of this and efforts to fix it), so at least I don't have to feel bad about my behavior this way! :)

I guess the only thing we did for Thanksgiving was...show up, but I did also make some pies which was fun.  Scott is probably very tired of hearing about me making pies.  I only ever make them for Thanksgiving so I pretty much just talked about making pie and nothing else for a week or two.

Sadly we had to cancel a lot of our weekend plans because of the sicknesses, but we were still able to see the family a bunch, and Scott and I went on a temple dinner date where we ran into our own sealer.  Before I realized who he was, he was mentioning how he doesn't remember everyone he's done ordinances for.  So then I read his name tag and had a good laugh to myself since he did my ordinance.  Surprise, he did not remember us.

We also drove down to Springville, which is such a magical place during the holidays to me.  It reminds me of so many past holidays from my entire life.  Yes, my Grandma and Grandpa still play kick ball. #goals

All in all it was a great weekend and I have a lot to be grateful for, especially for this one:

He's everything I've always dreamed of having, PLUS he isn't mean to me when I'm sick.

Halloween and All the Holidays

November has been treating us rather well this year.  We loved Halloween and then boom we found ourselves in the month of Thanksgiving.

Since I never posted about Halloween...It was fun!  We had to leave the church party before the winners of the chili cookoff were announced, so I guess I'm left to assume that I won again and no one remembered to tell me later?

Yay for Halloween.

Moving on!

We did our second "Foley Family" Thanksgiving which means we have our own personal family Thanksgiving earlier in November where we can enjoy Thanksgiving food for several days, just on our own.  We like doing this because once the real Thanksgiving hits, we're not stuffing ourselves and only getting that delicious food once per year.  Plus I get to try random recipes and we can give those delicious side dishes the attention they deserve.  It's fun to make Thanksgiving last longer than a day.  I also now own my own turkey roasting pan, so I guess this means I've arrived.

Speaking of holidays...let's talk about 3 in one post shall we?  Maybe more?  I can get excited about Easter too, never you fear. Anyway, I purchased a 12 foot Christmas tree (thank you KSL)! I'm giddy with excitement.  I hope this excitement lasts for more than one month and through the hours of attempting to put it up/decorate it.  Also I think trying to decide on a decorating scheme for a Christmas tree is just as hard as picking a wall paint color.  Oof.

I tend to follow my gut instincts when it comes to listening to Christmas music and this year I decided on November 10th.  Just in case you were wondering (crickets...).  I don't feel confined to whatever other people are doing (midnight Halloween, December 1st, Black Friday, why?).  Speaking of other socially unacceptable things I am doing, the Clay Aiken Christmas CDs (yes plural) are everything.  Sure, some parts do make me laugh, but mostly, I love them with no sarcasm.  Also new Josh Groban 10th anniversary Noel?  Yes.

As superficial as it may be, lately I'm enjoying the acquirement of new things.  Like Christmas present stuff and, oh yeah, another 30% of my house!  The basement is just about finished and we also put in some work into the yard (the rest will follow in the spring when it's safe to plant stuff).  Check out the new garden area!  Let's hope I can grow more than one zucchini now that we have some real soil.

What else...?  Work's going well and Ivy is talking a lot more. We love so many things she says.  My personal favorite is "yes" (pronounced schyeeeeeesh! with an awesome lisp and voice inflection). Also her arm shrug when we ask where something is, is especially great.  Also! I'm forcing my way into new hairstyles for her cute brown hair.  Also!  She's finally more consistent at saying my name instead of ignoring me and only ever saying "Da"! I live for the moments in the morning while I'm working in my office and I hear her asking Scott where I am.  "Mama?  Mama?  Mama?"