Holidays

Jared put Christmas lights on our house which was spectacular! It was not an easy task, though, as the day he put them up it was windy. He was on the very top of the roof and the ladder blew down, luckily, it didn't hurt anyone. It landed with a thud and I ran out to investigate. He was trapped up there for about a half hour until Brigham came home from school to help me lift the heavy ladder back up to Jared. I can't believe we managed to save Jared off the roof. I already miss having the lights on the house because Jared's already taken them down. I'm so thankful for that though because I would hate to have them still up late into the year. Already, I'm looking forward to seeing them again next year. Great job, Jared!
Our holidays have truly been wonderful. Most of all, we've enjoyed our health and happiness. For our Christmas Eve program, we talked about the true meaning behind giving gifts. We watched "Mr. Krueger's Christmas" and "The Nativity."
The funniest thing about our Christmas Eve program was when Jared asked Gracie:
"Who told the shepherds that Baby Jesus was born?"
Gracie enthusiastically replied: "THE GIANTS!"
Also, we did something new this year as we attended a Midnight Mass at a nearby Catholic Church. We left the littlest ones at home with Hopie and four of us, Jared, Julie, Brig, & Nessa, went to Mass. We hadn't ever been and it was a unique experience for us. The music was so lovely and it turned out very nice.
We hosted a New Year's Eve party at our house this year. We had so much fun! Jared BBQ'd chicken and ribs. We had rosemary mashed potatoes, "not-your-mothers" green beans, and quesadillas. Our drink was a cranberry creation by Jared and he also served a decadent chocolate dessert.
The highlight of our evening was Jared's industrial strength homemade pinata. We all had fun taking turns hitting the pinata. I'm very grateful that the broken stick that came about from this process didn't hit anyone in the eye. I think that was because we were all being safety conscious as Jared had some strict guidelines for everyone to take turns and stand back. Thanks for that, Jared. We had so much fun even though our candy was smashed into little powdery bits because we just couldn't break that pinata open. We ended up using the tear it apart method in the end.
New Year's Day was fun as we played games like LIFE and LIFE on the FARM (thanks to Aaron and Cami sending it to us!). In LIFE, we learned that earning money would get you ahead in that game while in LIFE on the FARM, owning cattle was the most important in order to have a chance to earn any money. When we play it again, we won't be afraid to use all our money at the beginning of the game to buy cattle so we then will have better chances. We're looking forward to another family game night!