I forgot a title

This has been a very busy last couple of days, but a very fun past couple of days too. Sunday was crazy! We had our Christmas program in Sacrament meeting, and it went so well! I was so proud of my choir for the hard work they put in. I think a lot of them were not used to singing music that hard, but all of them rose to the challenge and it was a success. The choir sang "Still, Still, Still", "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks" (with flute), and "Baby, What You Goin' to Be?". We're up to about 25 people now, which is great! The men also sang "Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains" and the women sang "Lullaby". I also had 2 girls do a duet, "Angels We Have Heard on High" and Jeremy and I sang "Were You There?" (which was another miracle. He has been really sick for the past week or so and Saturday he could hardly make a sound. But, he sang on Sunday and it worked out great!). I had a bass in the choir do the narrations and we just had one speaker, the bishop. It was perfect. I was happy and so pleased. We ended right on time and everything was just as I had dreamed it to be. My prayers were answered!

So our church is at 9:00 and I had the women of the choir get there at 8:00 (we needed an extra rehearsal for our song) and the rest of the choir came at 8:30. So then we had church and came home and then we left at 3:00 to go down to Springville where I sang in a Messiah thing. It was so fun. I love singing with great singers! It was pretty much all people who have been in BYU Singers at some time and a lot of them studied voice in a masters or something, so they are all really good. It was amazing. We sang at the Springville Art Museum and Jeremy said we filled the entire museum. We were singing on the 2nd floor and he went to get something out of the car while we were warming up and he could here us at the front door. So we sang "And the Glory of the Lord", "Glory to God", "For Unto Us a Child is Born" (which I had never sung with a group that could do all the melismas beautifully, it was awesome!) and of course "Hallelujah". There were also some fantastic soloists. I accompanied for "And who may abide the day of his coming" (so hard, never again will I play that), "Rejoice" and "He Shall Feed His Flock/Come Unto Him". It was really fun.

So that ended at 6:00 and then we rushed back up to Sandy for our Stake Music Fireside at 7:00. The choir was singing a song for that and the men were doing their song, so we needed to be there. It was a crazy day! But most of the choir came, so it was another success!

Then last night we (as in Jeremy and I and the ward choir) sang our program at a Convalescent Home in our ward and then had everyone over to our house after. So I was busy cookin' and cleanin' up a storm yesterday! We had hot wassail, english toffee, snowball cookies, hello-dollies, zucchini bread, and pumpkin bread. Whew! But it was great and I think everyone had a really nice time. Our house looked so festive with our Christmas decor and our fire going. I forgot to take a picture of all the food and everything out, but I made up a plate for my neighbor so here's the sweetened condensed version of our goodies:
And here's our toffee. We were so proud. We made a batch Saturday night and then made another one Sunday night. Our first time and they both turned out really well. Mmmmm, we love toffee!
One last thing. I feel very grateful for heaters and shelter at this time of year. It has been getting very very cold here lately and it's been snowing since Saturday morning. Here's a little look at the weather forecast for the next few days. Yikes!

Today	Tomorrow	Thu	Fri	Sat
Snow Showers	AM Snow Showers	Partly Cloudy	Few Snow Showers	Partly Cloudy
High: 28° Low: 16°	High: 26° Low: 16°	High: 26° Low: 22°	High: 26° Low: 14°	High: 19° Low: 6°

Glad we're leaving on Saturday! It's rough when it never gets above freezing. We stocked up on "Ice Melt" on Saturday and we've already used quite a bit on on our driveway and walkway. Burrr!!!

Crazy birds and cinnamon rolls

So yesterday it was snowing all day, which was kind of fun because it hasn't snowed much this year. So anyway, a few weeks ago after it had rained, I looked out the window to see hundreds and hundreds of birds attacking each lawn on the street for a few seconds at a time. They would all come down to one for awhile and then they'd all move on to another. I had wished then that I had taken a picture, but fear not! It happened again yesterday! I have never seen anything like it. This is a picture of my neighbor's house across the street with the birds attacking her lawn. They were on my lawn right before this, but moved before I could get a picture.
And another shot. I don't know if the worms were coming up or what, but this reminded of that creepy Hitchcock movie, "The Birds". Yikes!
So since it was snowy and I'm feeling very much in the Christmas spirit, I decided to make cinnamon rolls. I wanted to make a wreath like my mom always used to, but it spread so much that it just looked like a blob. I had a few single cinnamon rolls on the edges of the pan and they all ran together. Oh well. They taste really good!
Here's a normal pan. These are the ones I took to people in the ward. They looked better.
So thanks for the great recipe mom! They took forever (mostly rising because our house is freezing) but they made the house smell delicious and made me feel happy. :)

O Christmas Tree

We got a Christmas tree!!! I was so excited for this day to come. Jeremy has been a little apprehensive, because he was starting to wonder where his extremely frugal wife went for the Christmas season. I told him I was going to get a few Christmas decorations and we were getting a tree. :) I didn't spend very much at all though, and I really only got a couple of things and now that everything is up he loves it and is really glad we did it. He just kept saying, "this is our first Christmas in our house, we don't have to do everything". But we didn't do everything. Don't worry. I got everything, including the tree, tree stand, lights, ornaments, etc. for under $100. I think that's pretty good. I don't shop much, because I don't enjoy it and I hate spending money, so when I do, I make sure I get a good deal. :)

Anyway, so we went to get a tree last night for family night. I couldn't remember ever going to one of those pre-cut pick up your tree places, so I was excited. We always went to a place where you have to cut it down yourself. (Which was always really fun too). Anyway, so we went to a couple places to find the best deal and we found our perfect tree. We asked the guy to take a picture of us and he kindly obliged. Our first tree!

So then we came home and decorated! (Well after we set up the tree and watered it of course). We had the perfect amount of lights and ornaments, so I was glad. We decided to put the tree in our "red room" because it looks so Christmas-y. Maybe next year I'll convince Jeremy to get a 9-footer (haha, right).


Here's a somewhat fuzzy picture with the light off. It looks so pretty!


And our bookshelf in that room has a little nativity from Jon's mission in Paraguay and a "noel" I made at an enrichment last year. And then our real first Christmas tree down in the bottom left corner (haha). We got that at the dollar store a few years ago.


And this is on top of our TV cabinet thing. We collected a bunch of pine cones in Tahoe this last week so those big ones are beautiful and real. I also got some medium and little ones for our wreath on the front door and the garland on the mantle.


On our piano. My mom got me those cute nutcrackers last year. Thanks mom! And I helped make that little nativity with Debbie and Becky in Tahoe last week.



And the mantle.


So that's our decorated house! Come visit us! Some of our neighbors have gone all out with the outside lights so it looks very festive around here. We love Christmas!

And the rest of the vacation

We had a great time in Tahoe. Thanksgiving day was mostly spent preparing the meal, eating the meal, and recovering from the meal. :) Friday we took family pictures. Everyone looked so nice and the pictures turned out pretty well. We also played a lot of games and visited and all of that. It was also my halfway day! Woohoo! I'm over 20 weeks now. Saturday we all went on a nice hike. The kids had fun avoiding the bear poop and looking for deer tracks and such.
Lucy was keeping Jeremy's ears warm. Her hands were the perfect little size for ear muffs!

Then we came back and made donuts! It was really fun. I had never made them before and they were quite delicious. We also made a maple glaze to put on top. Yummy! (Some pictures are hard to see because our camera over-exposes everything).

Yep, that's a lot of oil.


Jeremy also opened his Christmas present from Jared. He got a toolbelt and was very excited about it. He doesn't look so in the picture, but I think he's trying to look tough or something. :)
Then that afternoon, Becky, Debbie, Jeremy and I went to see Twilight!
I actually thought it was really good. I went into it with pretty low expectations, because movies made from books are never nearly as good as the books, but I really enjoyed it. I know they didn't have a huge budget, so some things could have been better, but overall I thought Edward was quite attractive and it was all pretty well done. I even want to see it again! And they announced that they're doing the sequel, and I'm sure they'll have more money to do it, so hopefully it will be good.

So we had a great trip and are happy to be home. We had a choir rehearsal at our house last night and it went really well. (An hour and a half after we got home. Whew!) Then I started putting up Christmas decorations and it looks so festive! We're going to get our tree tonight. Yea! So life is good and we're doing great. Thanks Nowlands for the wonderful Thanksgiving!

Family Pictures

Me and my handsome husband
The grandkids: Lydia, Lucy, Catelyn, Ben, and CooperThe whole fam:The siblings: Jeremy, Jonathan, Becky, Josh, and JaredAt and Emerald Bay lookout (you can't really see the lake in the picture, but it's there)

Thanksgiving Feast

Appetizers:

Carrying food over:Pretty table:
Delicious food!