Merry Christmas!!

For our young women's lesson on Sunday, there was a part I had to read. It sums up how I feel about Christmas, so I thought I'd share it here. Hope you don't mind....


"Our Savior gave each of us the greatest gift of all. He gave His life to save us. Never did the Savior give in expectation of receiving. He gave freely and lovingly. He gave us His love, His service, and His life. And most important, He gave us and all mortals resurrection, salvation, and eternal life. We should strive to give as He gave...

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would give him a lamb,
If I were a wise man,
I would do my part, -
But what can I give Him,
Give my heart."

We've had a pretty simple month. None of the usual hectic hustle and bustle. I really tried to cut back and keep things low-stress. I haven't updated my blog in forever, but mostly because there hasn't been much to blog about! We are really enjoying our holiday. One fun thing we did was for Wendell and I to go to San Diego to shoot a wedding. So warm!! 70 degrees! Check out his blog for pictures soon. Today we head to Wendell's mom's house for a nice dinner. We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. (or that you HAD a wonderful Christmas, depending on when you read this.) :O)

Mitchell Family Pictures

thanksgiving

Here are some random pictures from our Thanksgiving weekend in St. George with my family.

They're actually in backwards order, with the tree-hunting we did on Saturday, on down to Thanksgiving day at the bottom.

Too lazy to fix it. lol.

Lisa and Benji getting ready to tree-hunt.

the kids love wandering the hills, even though we don't get a tree.

Even the dogs had little coats. So cute.

Aaawww. Sydney lost another tooth on our way up to the mountain. She doesn't have that many more to lose!

On Friday, Mom and Dad treated us all to Pirate Island Pizza. A cross between Rain Forest Cafe (pirate style, of course) and the Fun Park (with games, tickets to earn and prizes to win)

tough tough wendell....

And here's our thanksgiving day. We had the kids eat first, since space was limited. Then when we sat down as adults, we could actually enjoy our meal. :)

And here are the goods. No turkey this year. Dad cooked up a spiral ham. Divine.

Thanksgiving night, I went to New Moon with my sisters and mom. Then I was insane enough to venture out in the wee hours of the morning the next day for some Black Friday shopping. Now I've experienced it. I have to say, those stores know what they're doing. There really weren't that many things on sale! lol. But everyone gets suckered into doing all of their shopping and paying full price for most of their stuff. lol. Ah, well, we had "fun", didn't we Lisa?

a little whole wheat and a night out

Overnight Whole Wheat Rolls

www.lynnskitchenadventures.com/2009/02/overnight-whole-wheat-rolls.html

These are the softest, yummiest rolls ever!

I couldn't copy/paste the link for some reason, so I hope the address I typed works.

Try this recipe! It's worth it. :O)

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A couple of months ago, Logan got a new Texas Roadhouse Grill. It is the only one in the country where all the profits go to charity. We hadn't had a chance to try it out until a few nights ago. It was so yummy! We shared a combination dinner of steak and ribs. I can't wait to go again.

Halloween

We had a great Halloween! Dinner and trunk-or-treating with the in-laws. Then back to our neighborhood for a quick up-and-down one of the streets. The kids really didn't get as much candy this year, but it was all GOOD candy. So no complaints. Plus not a lot of extras for me to pig out on....which is a good thing. :)

Our little Dorothy. I made Sydney's dress. Kinda proud of myself....it actually looks like a dress. :O)

Meeee-ow...

Ethan was going to be Buzz Lightyear, and Cole was going to be Wall-e. But at the last minute, Ethan decided he couldn't bear to have Cole wear "his" Wall-e costume, so he changed his mind. Which was perfect because Cole LOVED being Buzz. Nice.

Best Cousins: Walle and Thomas.

October, cont'd

We had a lot of fun this last month. One Friday evening, Wendell was working, so I took the kids over to the American West Heritage Center to do the corn maze and other activities. There was a kid hay climbing pile, a small kid's maze, plus the corn maze, train rides, pony rides ,and the big slide.

This is the "super slide" down a big hill. It was actually very slow. We had to push ourselves most of the way down. However, when I went with the Youth earlier in the month, it was very slippery and we about smacked right into the bails of hay at the bottom. But I guess things get worn out with time. The kids still loved it.

By the corn maze.

In the corn maze. We followed the map and got out of there pretty quickly. The kids had a blast.

The last monday of the month, we were in charge of our big Pace family FHE. So we planned a freezing cold picnic followed by a trip over to the Pumpkin Walk. Here are a few of the displays at the Pumpkin Walk. I loved this vegetable garden. The theme was something to do with advertising. Because each display was some kind of "ad". And everything is made with pumpkins.

They have several cut-outs each year. For picture taking.

Sydney and cousin, Josie.

Our typical big family group shot after our freezing cold picnic was over. The Pace family makes it a tradition to do a picnic or cookout even in cold temperatures. And this night was no exception. I made a couple of soups and everyone else made the other stuff. It was fun to freeze our tails off at the park.

For our last Young Women's activity of the month, our Laurels/Mia Maids group planned a Halloween Mystery Dinner party. Everyone brought some food. And I had made up a menu with various random halloween sounding names. So that when they ordered, they didn't know what they were getting. We had 3 courses, and your utensils had to be ordered, too. And we all dressed up. Me and one of the girls were the servers. I thought it was a very creative and fun activity. We combine the two older classes for our class activities because we have so few girls.

I'm supposed to be a witch - but my hat wouldn't stay on as I ran up and down the stairs preparing everyone's plates.

Our actual Halloween pictures will follow shortly!

Our October

This week we had to break out the coats, gloves and boots for the first time this fall. The kids were excited to go out and play in and eat the snow. While I was excited nothing stuck enough to the driveway to have to shovel.

A house a few minutes away from us is famous for their front yard "haunted museum" they do every year. Thousands of people drop by throughout the month to visit their display, so we thought we'd take the kids. This couple puts out and takes down their display every day, never leaving it up overnight.

The kids were so excited to go to the "haunted house", but once we were there they were a little worried. This is definitely a scary display. My pictures won't do it justice. But once the kids warmed up to the monsters, they actually loved it.

Cole still talks about these witches in the background. They moved and talked. The lady who owns the house is in this picture, too. Her husband built a lot of the displays.
Creepy Alien! Yikes.

In my last "bountiful basket" I received 3 persimmons. I had no idea what they were. Luckily someone filled me in. I've never seen or tasted these before. Quite pleasant. they look like orange tomatoes. But they are sweet and yummy. We tried one for fun, and pureed the other two to make cookies with them. I love the Bountiful Baskets because we sometimes get to experiment with produce I might never otherwise buy. In that basket we also got "mexican zucchini."

More of our october to come...