Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Family parties...

Before Nate and Amy went to Utah we wanted to have a Christmas get together. My mom made roast and mashed potatoes and we had a nice dinner. Afterwards we sang Christmas songs and Nathan read some Christmas stories.

Cirdan and I made our famous pumpkin cheesecake...so delicious!


We also attended the Nye Family Christmas Party which is always fun. We ate hawaiian haystacks for dinner, sang Christmas carols and had the annual white elephant gift exchange. It was good to see everyone again.

Lastly the Jackson Christmas party. It was held at Matt and Carla's house. Their house looked beautiful and Carla went all out with the tables decorated and tons of food. After we ate the kids dressed up as characters (and animals) for the story of baby Jesus and acted it out while Cheryl read the story. Ella was supposed to be an angel but she didnt want to cooperate.

Santa then made his annual appearance! This always brings back really wonderful memories for me. Every year when I was little Santa would always visit us Christmas Eve at the Jackson party. I was convinced that this was the REAL Santa....until Steph (my cousin) wrecked it for me. I think I was around 12 years old!!

Ella was still not a fan of Santa...

I love Christmas. I love spending time with family and friends to celebrate the birth of Christ.

Gingerbread Houses and Dance Recitals

The Wednesday before school got out for winter break Kaiya's class made gingerbread houses (with graham crackers). I went and helped the kids which was a blast. I remember making the houses in school when I was in 2nd grade and it brought back some fun memories. The kids had a lot of icing and candy and I am not sure if by the end of the day some of them had more in their tummies then on their houses.

This was also a busy week for Kaiya. I had taken her out of the dance place that she went last year and switched her to a new place. One of the reasons for switching was that it was so hard to wait all year for one dance recital. I wanted to see what was going on more than the once a year production. I heard really good things about the place I switched her to. I am so glad I did. They have a Christmas production and I was impressed with the time that went into it. For the past month they had rehearsals on Saturdays. There was a full dress rehearsal on the Wednesday night before the show. Thursday Kaiya performed her hip hop dance and Friday she did her tap/ballet dance. Kaiya did a great we were so proud of her. The minute she walks in the door from school until the time she goes to bed she is dancing around the house. She was the girl in the hip hop dance that the kids would watch because she knew the dance well from all the practicing she did.

Tis the Season

We have been really busy the past couple weeks with lots of Christmas fun! Kaiya was at her dad's house, I called to ask her if she wanted us to wait for her to get home to come with us to find a tree. She said she wanted us to just go without her so Cirdan, Ella and I jumped in the car and headed to the tree farm. Last year we learned that hiking through the trees with a saw in the cold and mud was no fun for us and that we were better off just buying the tree from the pre cut section. We found the perfect tree....okay, well maybe it wasn't perfect. We got it home to realize that the stump was too big for the tree stand. Cirdan had to run to the store to buy a saw so he could "fix" it. After a few hours we finally got it up in the stand. Since it took awhile, it became bedtime and we decided to decorate it another night.

We went to my parents house for our annual decorating of Gingerbread Houses. We were supposed to do it on a Saturday night but our family and Amy and Emma were sick so Nate's family and us ended up going on Sunday night. Kaylee, Stacey, Mom and Dad had done theirs the night before.

Kaiya helped us a bit and Ella just tried to eat all the candy. Its fun to have the family grow (Amy and Cirdan) to get some new decorating ideas. Every year we all have to out do each other. Kaylee and my mom did really good on their roof! My dad worked many hours on his house and it was covered with candy.

Imbler house...(nerds roof)

My dad and Staceys...Mom and Kaylee's...




Also some pictures of decorating the tree. Cirdan's job is always the lights (I hate that part). Kaiya and Ella had fun putting on all the ornaments.