Christmas with Amy

So before Amy left on her mission, we had a little mini Christmas for her. Amy made this adorable cross stitch for Lisa. As I was gushing over it, my dad asked me, "You've done cross stitch, haven't you?" I said, "Oh yeah, I've started tons of them." Te he he, completing things isn't my forte.

And this is a picture of my favorite Christmas tradition. Every year our family reads Christmas stories every day in December before Christmas...well, TRIES to read every day before Christmas. My dad is always the one that reads them, and he ALWAYS cries. ALWAYS. I love it. My first memory of this was when I was in high school. My dad was reading Davey and the First Christmas. My brother was at that age where he got into EVERYTHING, and wanted to help with EVERYTHING, and always managed to do more damage than good. He was the sweetest boy, but man! I remember a time where EVERY SINGLE meal he would spill his drink. EVERY SINGLE MEAL. My poor mom. We started making bets on how long it would be before his drink spilled. The person who guessed the soonest was the one who usually won.

Anyway, my dad was reading this story, and about half way through he started tearing up. I knew he was thinking about my brother. So sweet and trying so hard, but just making everything worse than before.

Ever since then I have ABSOLUTELY LOVED hearing my dad read/tear up while reading Christmas stories.

It was a nice little pre-Christmas Christmas. And even better because Amy was there with us. I sure miss her!!!

Ward Christmas Party

The evening we got to my parents house in California, they had their ward Christmas party. Amy's farewell was the next day so a lot of my family was there. We were able to get this 4 generation picture with Hannah, me, my mom, and her dad.

Addison got to see Santa again this year (although no sitting on Santa's lap...too high of a risk for lawsuits...lame). She asked him for the exact same thing she asked him for last year when she saw him: a candy cane. He happily obliged.

Merry Christmas

Originally uploaded by Bart's Rebecca

Okay, so I know I haven't blogged for a while, but I have our memory card from Christmas now, and as soon as the pictures are uploaded to Flickr, I'll start blogging away. I just wanted to post a little picture I took of one of my mom's adorable ornaments....more soon to come.

Plan D

So Amy came to visit for a week before she left on her mission. It was great having her here, especially since it will be so long before we get to see her again.

One of the things we wanted to do was see the Christmas lights up at Temple Square. The Friday before she left we all hopped in the car and headed north.

As we listened to the traffic report we heard of terrible delays on the way up to Salt Lake, so we decided to pursue plan B: the lights at Thanksgiving point and then driving by the Provo temple. (The temple was part of the plan because we had told Addison we were going to see the temple and she was really excited, so we figured we'd take her to at least a temple.)

Right before we got to the Provo center street exit, we hit the traffic. The accident was up in American fork and it was literally stop and go. So we decided to pursue plan C: driving by the Provo temple and then going to the festival of lights in Spanish fork. We merged rapidly to the right and exited.

When we came to University Avenue, we hit the light. Amy looked out the passenger window and read a banner on the fence of the field in front of the Provo Tabernacle, "The Living Nativity"

Me: Oh, that's cool, when are they doing that?

Amy (Reading the banner): December11th and 12th.

Me: Cool...wait, that's today isn't it...what time

Amy (Reading the banner): 6:30 & 7:00

Me: What time is it?

Amy Looking at the Clock: 6:15

Me: How much does it cost?

Amy (Reading the banner): Our gift to you Free Admission

Both of us: SWEET!!!

We made a quick turn and finally ended up pursuing plan D: The Living Nativity and a drive around Provo Temple.

The living nativity was basically the Christmas story (including several prophecies about Christ's birth) acted out by people. It was sooooooooo awesome! It was put on by one of the Provo stakes and it was just the families in that stake that were the actors. There was this one part where Mary took the baby Jesus (a doll, not a baby) around for all the little kids on the stage to see. There was this one little toddler that, when Mary came next to her, sat up as tall as she could and leaned forward so hard to see the baby. I don't know what it was about that moment, but Amy and I both teared up. It was very sweet. It was an AWESOME plan D and I'm glad we got to go. And here are some pictures.

This picture CRACKS me up because Addison was NOT crying. She just silently made this random face and poor Amy had no idea that, judging by Addison's face, people would think she was torturing her niece.

After the living nativity they had a mini petting zoo outside...although I didn't get pictures, the best part was when the Lama escaped. A bunch of people had to form a big circle around it and close in to catch it again. It was pretty funny...although I did feel sorry for the poor lama.

Amy's Off

Well, my sister has now left for the Missionary Training Center, where she will be for the first few weeks of her mission. If you're curious about what an LDS mission is like, I will be posting her weekly letters on her blog at this address:

http://sistercollyer.blogspot.com/

We miss her already, but are so excited for and proud of her.