Gingerbread Houses

We had a Galbraith family dinner with those who live nearby by parents last Saturday night. It was a lot of fun. My mom had the house decorated from top to bottom just about!

After dinner the kids made gingerbread houses. Ali was excited all day about making them. Although I think she was really just thinking that she would be eating them :)

Here's my sister Nat and her cute kids. We missed our siblings/nieces/nephews who live away from us!

It's so hard not to kiss this boy all the time.

My parents got him these cute reindeer jammies. Not sure where the goose egg is from :(

Justin was in attendance too. My parents also had us open a book for each family about the nativity. It has beautiful pictures with songs to sing as well as scriptures. The food was delicious too! We had ham, twice baked potatoes, rolls, corn, a delicious salad, and dessert.

Technically this is a Galbraith Christmas, but Natalie's family has done their own thing Chrimstas morning for the past several years and this will mark the first year that we will spend it just as our little family. We are looking forward to it! Then my parents and brother Todd will join us for brunch and later we will head to Natalie's.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Decorations

It took us several days to finally get our tree decorated once we had it, but I'm finally getting the pictures up to share.

I had a few ornaments and things I bought several years ago, but truth be told, this is the first year besides when we were in Provo, that we've decorated our own tree. Justin always thought since my mom had one that we didn't need one. Not true, but less work, so we didn't!

I found the tree skirt at TJ Maxx (I also have seen it at Home Goods). I didn't realize we were going to go with a snowflake theme, but we kind of did. I really like how it all turned out!

We found our ornaments and ribbon at Michael's, Modern Display, and Rod Works.

A look at my mantle. I'm not 100% happy with it, but I was too lazy to do anything else with it. I think I need a garland here too or some greenery. Next year....!!

On the far left is a cute music box that I have inherited from my grandparents (Galbraith's). I love it. It is vintage and just cute. My kids love it, but I have put it out of reach in the hopes that it will last :)

Just for fun I wanted to take some cool "bokeh" pictures with the kids. Molly was at school when I took them and I haven't had a chance to get her in one!

With lights at night.

Can I just say that I have loved decorating my own house for Christmas?! Love it.

I bought the garland a couple weeks ago when Michael's put their Christmas stuff 70% off. I also bought some wreaths for the back of my bar stools and tied a ribbon on.

On the outside (I didn't take any pics unfortunately) I made some boughs with some leftover branches from our tree. But you don't want to see a pic because they are now dead :( ha! And looking a bit sad and a bit brownish. But I tied some cute red bows on my lanterns above the boughs. At least those still look nice. Justin hung some bright white cool lights, which makes them look a bit bluish. While he wasn't super excited about doing it, our neighbor across the street does it professionally and he gave him all the tips so they look perfect!

I'm excited to add to the decor each year. Yep, I have a problem!!

Thanksgiving

Welcome to our Thanksgiving recap via iPhone pics. First off, I was able to go help at Molly's kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast. Everyone brought 25 small things for them to eat (carrot sticks, crackers, small rolls, a piece of candy, etc). The kids all wore their cute hats and enjoyed the feast. I got to help pass out all the food with a few other moms.

Once they had their food they got to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Lucky kids! They were so funny to listen to. They laughed at the littlest things in the movie. It was pretty entertaining.

Wednesday morning we headed to Park City to meet up with the Pendletons. My in-laws used their time share for us for the week. They had an indoor pool and hot tub! The kids really enjoyed it.

Having some hot chocolate and watching cartoons one morning.

For our actual Thanksgiving meal, we drove to downtown SLC and ate at Tucano's. In addition to some of their yummy meats and regular menu items, they also had traditional turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, etc. They also served fried turkey and bacon wrapped turkey. Yummy! Jackson actually loved all of the meat! I was impressed. I just kept putting everything on his plate and he would eat it!

It was all yummy! Here is my first plate :)

The pineapple was delicious. Brooke is on the left and my cute niece McKenna on the right.

Left to right around the circle: Mark, Carly, Shelley, Maddy, Brad, Molly, Val, Ashley and Paxton.

Left to right: Justin, Brooke, Sunny and Kyle.

The kids ate for free, but the adults got to pick one dessert. We ordered an extra piece of cake for the girls. I think you can see that they liked it.

Justin ordered the creme brûlée.

More time in the pool.

Sunny did makeovers for us one day! It was fun.

We had fun hanging out with the kids.

We did several activities with the kids one day. We had little coloring books with stickers, made ornaments and decorated cookies.

They were so proud of their creations.

Jackson's favorite thing to do! Read books.

We also decided while there that we would open Christmas gifts since it will be an off year for the family. We all ended up bringing the gifts or buying them while there, so it worked out well. It was more fun to do it together than separately.

Here we all are anxiously anticipating the gifts...

Jackson got this cookie monster and some tractors that move and turn.

Ali got a Cinderella horse and carriage. The carriage turns into a pumpkin.

Molly got a barbie with a scooter.

We got Justin's dad a clay pigeon thrower. He was excited. Justin, Val and Mark went to Cabela's at about 1 am and waited in line until they opened at 6. They were too late for some of the amazing door busters. Bummer. But Justin got this gift! So I guess it was worth it. Although they all said never again!

Saturday we checked out of our hotel, but we met up later at City Creek in Salt Lake and then we saw the lights at Temple Square.

This was the end of our fun weekend!


Now just for fun...

We had the kids open up some Christmas jammies a couple nights ago.

Doing his favorite thing....again ;)

Loving the holidays! We feel so blessed in so many ways.