December 2017

Faith has been taking Driver's Ed. Here she is doing some practice driving on December 2nd.

That afternoon we visited the Festival of Trees. The kids decided they needed these ugly Christmas sweaters from Smith's for the occasion. (Christian's even lights up!)

On the 6th Bud moved the popcorn machine to his room to make more room for my Bunco hosting table set-up.

December 8th Faith got her driver's licence!

That day Bud got some highlights in his hair (which his stylist calls "guylights" haha!)

I had gotten some beauty items including this face mask tissue sheet. Christian asked if he could try it and I let him. His comment? "It burns!"

Because we were getting home from our trip just a day before Christmas, I made up these tags in advance to have them ready. Our neighbor gift included a giant can of nacho cheese from Sam's Club and a bag of tortilla chips!

I thought our Christmas gift to the ward sisters from the Relief Society presidency turned out kind of cute:

I hosted bunco on the 7th and I wanted to make some cute snacks which were still sugar-free. I found these ideas on Pinterest and had some fun with them:
olive, fresh mozzarella, and carrot penguins

strawberries with sugar-free cheesecake filling and sugar-free chocolate eyes

The 9th was Christian's ballroom competition in Provo.

He did great and got a silver ribbon!

That evening we went to Scrooge at the Terrace Playhouse.

The evening of the 10th we left for our cruise! I'll cover the trip in the next blog entry :)

When we came back from paradise, this echoed my thoughts exactly-

Here is the baby that missed wearing the jacket Grammy bought her to go on walks with grandpa.

It was Christmas Eve and we sure had a huge pile of laundry to deal with!

I love how the kids were "hiding" in this pic of us on our way to church.

We went to mom and dad's for the Christmas Eve party and had delicious food. We played a name that tune game using a tiny piano,

and rolled dice to take turns unwrapping a saran wrap ball full of prizes.

Afterward, we went through the Ogden park.

Of course we remembered to drive by Dr. John's, as well! Disappointingly not too many cars in the parking lot this year.

The kids woke us up around 6:30 am on the 25th. Not too much under the tree since our gift was the cruise, but Santa brought some X-box games, and from us Christian got this Walking Dead themed hoodie,

and Faith got a Puerto Rico backpack.

Of course there were stockings full of treats! (this is the inside of Bud's Skittles candy book)

It had snowed, so Tony shoveled a section of the back patio for Skittles to potty.

We went to my parents' first, but I didn't remember to take pictures. Then on to Braeggers'. We were spoiled by both as usual!

We came home and the first thing Bud wanted were the owl pellets given to him by grandma and grandpa Peterson. He dissected one and found lots of cool rodent bones, including a full skull of something larger than a mouse!

Tony deep fried a turkey and we ate turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce. 

On the 26th the kids spent the day playing video games,

and Skittles enjoyed her bacon scented ball from Tammy

and pig ear from Grammy.

New Year's Eve we were at Braeggers' party! It was a small group this year, but still fun. We had pulled pork sandwiches this year.

November 2017

On November 1st Christian got 3-D scans of his skull in preparation of braces early next year.

Here's my cute 16 year old birthday girl!

I picked her up from school and took her for her first pedicure.

We got an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen for that night.

Christian's gift to his sister:

On the 2nd Bud had some special effects makeup fun.

I saw a picture of this statue online and felt it represented my life a few years ago.

I saw this meme and it made me think of Faith, LOL!

We saw Thor on the 4th.

Then ate at Tucano's. We had some certificates for free dessert and Bud's piece of cake was huge!

I found this picture of Jason and Riley's Halloween costumes on Facebook. Jason made his himself.

Here's my stretchy doggie on the 8th.

It was the book fair at the elementary which I was in charge of with my friend Priscilla. Christian picked a book with some simple science experiments.

Here's Bud's paper from parent-teacher conference.

On the 12th we celebrated Faith's birthday with family. Her cake came out really cool!

Her party was Hollywood themed.

We loved the swag bags!

The cake was red velvet.

That night mom gave the girls bracelets as invitations to The Nutcracker.

Christian got this pic of Skittles "smiling" on the 18th.

That afternoon we took the kids ice skating.

And the kids picked out these pajamas!

I got a chuckle out of these memes:

The 22nd was Thanksgiving. The kids watched some of the Macy's parade in virtual reality. We especially loved watching the Davis High marching band on tv!

Because I decided to eat no sugar from September 11-December 11, I baked myself some sugar-free low-carb desserts for the day. Pecan pie bars,

and keto pumpkin log roll.

We had great dinners both at my parents' and Tony's.

On the 25th Faith and I joined my mom, my sisters and their daughters (minus Evie who isn't old enough yet) in attending the Nutcracker ballet. Beautiful as always!

That evening we went to the drive through lights in Layton.

I had been working for several weeks on some felt projects I was asked to make to sell at the Festival of Trees, benefiting Primary Children's Hospital. On the 27th I needed to finish them up, so I enlisted the help of the family.

I think they turned out pretty cute! (showing fronts and backs-the whole thing was a pocket which housed the craft foam game pieces)

I took a twinkling video of our master bedroom tree using a new app.