Friday, December 27, 2013

December 2013

Stocking Holders
I had this bright idea to make some new stockings for the newcomers to our family.  They are just plain red and green, but they have everyone's name on them.  Well, I got the stockings done, but that created another problem....no way to hang them all! So I looked on Pinterest and found some hangers I liked. The next problem was that the mantle on the fireplace is very narrow. I came up with a way to make them, I think they turned out really nice!

I love that you can change the picture every year.
 
The next problem...they didn't stay put when the stockings were hung on them! So, Blake and Randy devised a wire and some hooks and kind of tied them to the fireplace. 
 
I love it!
 
Randy and Blake got the tree up and almost all decorated for me. They did a pretty great job!
 
Maden turned 4 on December 5th! He was lucky enough to celebrate with his Grandpa and Grandma Clift.  He made sure to tell me when we skyped a few days later that he was 4 now!
 
We got a real good snow storm early in the month. Then, it turned cold with temps near 0 and below, some days the highs stayed in the single digits.
 
Jared finally got to go snow machining on December 21st! Oh, so did Blake, Randy, Courtney and Nikelle. They went up to Island Park, it had snowed the day before and the snow was perfect. They ate lunch at Meadow Creek.
 
Jared, Nikelle, Blake and I went to the Live Nativity in Blackfoot on Sunday, December 22nd. Nikelle had never been to one before and loved it.  Luckily the weather had warmed up some, so we didn't even freeze to death.
 
I found this cute picture of Maden (on the left) when he was a year old in an elf suit that Cindy gave him.  Celia put the suit on Annie, so now we have a Maden Elf and an Annie Elf.
 
 
We decided to change things up a bit for Christmas this year.  Randy was scheduled to work on Christmas Day, so we decided to open presents and have dinner on Christmas Eve. We started the day out with the traditional monkey bread, then opened presents. During the day, we skyped with Brian's family for a little while. After dinner, Jared and Nikelle left for Rupert.  Christmas morning was really quiet and different.  Blake and I got to watch Maden, Brian, Celia and Annie open their presents thanks to Skype! I love Skype!We went up to Idaho Falls to Blake's mothers and had dinner with her and his sister Natillie and their family.  In the afternoon, Blake decided to enlist Natillie and Mark's help and take Helen's tree down. It was very nice to have help! We played some games and then came home. It was different, but that doesn't matter, the important thing is to celebrate the birth of our Savior!
 



Here we are on Christmas Eve with all our presents.  Blake did some shopping for himself and put them under the tree with tags saying they were from Maden and Annie! He thought he was pretty funny!
 
 


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