Festivities

We have been CRAZY busy having a CRAZY amount of fun! I love this time of year and all the parties and family, etc. I am also glad when it's over and I get some sort of routine back in my life. I started this season by making these little lovelies for my family. Vinyl, contact paper, a Cricut, tiles and 6 hours later, I had 15 of these puppies. I've come to the conclusion that you pay more money and have someone else do things for you, or you pay less and spend a lot of your time. Luckily I had some time to spare but not a lot of sanity, so I'm not sure I'll ever attempt vinyl tiles again. I did design them and do them all by myself and I think the end product turned out nicely.

Christmas Eve we always go to an early dinner with my family. We went to Texas Roadhouse for the second time in a row. It was yummy! Then my family headed over to Dallin's parents' for their annual Christmas Eve party. I got to eat even more (!) and hang out with this cute little guy. There was also lots of Rock Band played - so fun!

Christmas Day was a little hectic. My brother (19-year-old boys, I tell ya) told us he'd be calling between 11 and 2. Nice window, dude. So we went to Dallin's parents' at 7:30 a.m. to open presents with his family then made it to my parents' by 10:30. We made a yummy breakfast and opened presents for about 10 minutes when Brett called to tell us he'd be calling. Huh, thought we knew that. LOL We told him to call back around 1 p.m. since our cousin would be there and he wanted to talk to him. So we finished opening presents and then I took a little catnap next to the Christmas tree. Brett called back around 2:30 and said his companion was still on the phone but talked to his cousin for a bit. So I took another little catnap and he finally called around 5 p.m. His companion was on the phone for FOUR and a HALF hours! Are you kidding me?!? It was so nice to talk to him though and he's really grown up in the 8 short weeks he's been out. He's doing really well, I'm so proud of him.

Dallin and I finally got home to do our own Christmas around 7 p.m. He really spoiled me. After we were done opening presents our friends invited us over to watch Inception with them. We were STARVING and I hadn't planned on making anything so we went with the masses to McDonald's. The ONLY place open. But man, am I grateful they were! The funny thing is that my in-laws were driving by on the freeway and saw the huge line there and asked themselves, "Who on earth would go to McDonald's for Christmas dinner?" Oh yeah! That'd be us! LOL

Most of our extended family parties are after Christmas which is nice because the hustle and bustle is generally over and you can go and enjoy and prolong the season. We had two parties on Monday, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. It was so fun to see our families, especially those from far away.

Tuesday, my cousin and I took my grandpa out to lunch then on a errand to Men's Warehouse where he got himself a couple of suits. I had more family in from out of town and we had a nice party that night at my parents' house. More funeral potatoes for us!

A couple weeks ago, we also had our annual gingerbread house making. I missed some of the fun fixing smashed letters on my tiles but Dallin is so good at this kind of stuff anyway. I was actually quite proud of our efforts this year. I decided that less is more and even though our dripping frosting/icicles look a little scary, I thought it turned out nice!

We hope you had a very Merry Christmas full of traditions and family. Good riddance to 2010 - welcome 2011!