Christmas 2011

Wow what a busy, fun season we had. I seriously couldn't remember a single thing that happened until I looked at my calendar from December and remembered all the events that happened. Sadly I took very few photos which explains why I don't remember what happened but I want to at least give a written record.
December kicked off with Jon's birthday then quickly the Christmas parties started up. My first one was the Relief Society Christmas dinner. My calling is activity leader for the Relief Society. It is seriously such a fun calling especially when you have awesome women with great experience that you work with. We had our dinner/program at the church buidling, I have to admit it was the most beautiful, spiritual activity I've helped to throw and even been to. It just came together so well, I can't believe I didn't snap a few photos. We finally figured out how to use the dimmers with Jon's help;), used lots of white twinkle light, tons of smaller fake trees, with large pictures of Christ around the room, and nativities set up in different areas. The tables had maroon toppers with large vases filled with bulbs and then a green garland around the bottom, with a few large wreaths at the door. An awesome woman in our ward made a back drop that looked like rock for the program. The program was the Women who knew Christ with some really amazing women who memorized their parts and some great musical numbers. We also had a delicious dinner with NY strip roast, baked potatoes, rolls, salad, punch and dessert. We had around 90 women show up and we got such wonderful feed back. I don't usually boast but we put a lot effort into it and it turned out fabulous, it was such a great feeling.
The Fulmer family started a new tradition last year of making gingerbread houses. So we kept it up this year out at Nicki and Jayson's house. I'm a little jealous Nicki already has ten times more decorating done in her house in a year than I've done in 6...oh well someday : ). We exchanged our kids gift exchange and ate a yummy dinner of BBQ meats from a local BBQ joint with some great treats Nicki made. My mom shocking also bought a chocolate cake for Dillon and Jon's birthday, she's so crazy about her cake. Everyone was too full from everything else to eat the cake but I'm sure my mom took care if at her house throughout the rest of the week with a fork staying in the box for a little bite each time she passed by.That same week we had our ward Christmas party which was a BBQ. Sadly we couldn't stay long because Scarlett was ready for a nap. We missed Santa. Scarlett didn't see Santa this year : ( I felt bad and I wanted the photo of her screaming on his lap. Oh well, there's always next year.
That night we had an super fun Ugly Sweater party with some of our friends from Jon's class. The hostesses(Heather and Valerie) made some delicious soup with bread bowls and amazing desserts. The cute hostesses had place cards for the dinner but all the boys served themselves first and all sat together. Such dental dorks, but it was fun catching up with all the girls I don't see enough of. We played a really hilarious game of Christmas Jeopardy which the girls won by the skin of our teeth oddly enough with the "Dental" category! We played a few other fun games and enjoyed each others company. I won the Ugliest sweater for the girls which isn't much of a surprise with how awful my outfit was I borrowed from Charlcie.The following week Lindsee had a Girls Christmas Party at her house. We've had a few craft/girls night as a group and it's been so nice to have a little girl time every now and again. We ate some yummy appetizers and desserts with tasty fun holiday flavored Jones Sodas. I loved the Jones sodas, I'll have to start buying those again. We socialized, pretty much a given with women, then played some pretty hilarious games. My favorite was the question game. It was a fun way to learn really random facts about friends. Also the white elephant gifts were pretty good with the calendar of hot guys with baby animals being the best gift.
The next night was our friends Lisa and Matt's party. They had some awesome Mexican food catered in and Lisa went all out with the adorable decorations. We ate and chatted with some pretty awesome friends. We're really going to miss Glendale when we have to move this summer.Christmas weekend we went out the East Valley of course and stayed out there going back and forth between the two family. All of Jon's family was able to come except for the Weiss's. We had tons of fun doing the traditional Christmas stuff- driving around looking at light, presents, dinners, family, Olsen Family Christmas party, movies, puzzles, kids being excited, grandparents house, games. The three little girls were adorable together, they make everything so fun.