HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

We had the very best Christmas ever, and hope you all did too.  There is nothing that beats family time.  Having all the extended families with us would have made it perfect!  I've been trying for days to upload a quick-time movie of our Christmas, but it keeps flopping, so instead, here are some pictures:

We were TOTALLY surprised a couple of days before Christmas when Brad's little sister, Lizzy, her husband, Jeff & two of her boys, Austin & Garrett showed up at our front door!  Lizzy was standing there with a box of chocolates and I thought, "Wow - a whole family is here to sell candy ..." it took me at least 10-seconds to realize who it was.  They stayed a couple of hours and we had a great time visiting.  It's never long enough with them, but what a great treat!      

The days before Christmas were spent playing games, making treats (Steve's the pro at making truffles!), working on presents, doing the puzzle, caroling, and talking, talking, talking.

We even found time to help Trevor and Caci shine up their bus.  

Christmas Eve we carried on our favorite traditions:

And Christmas Morning was fabulous!

If ever there was an enchanted time of life for me, this is it!  I LOVE having everyone together.  It's been a crazy week, and an even crazier month ... but moments together are what put everything into perspective.

Trevor and Caci have been traveling back and forth between here and California, getting their "SummerSalesBus.Com" bus ready for transport.  It's an amazing accomplishment!  We were all so excited when Trevor arrived just after Caci and Jace did a couple of days ago.  They signed with a major business last week, so they're having successes even before getting started!  This bus started out as a regular, gigantic bus ... but after gutting it and putting lots and lots of hours into it, take a look at it now:

The boys spent a little time working on the heater, "testing out the games", and inviting the girls to help ... while others of us took care of Christmas things.

SNOW

LET IT SNOW!  LET IT SNOW!!! LET IT SNOW!!!!!

Hooray!  It's December 17th, and SNOWING in Henderson, Nevada!  We're all loving it!  My visiting teacher stopped by with a Christmas bag FULL of lemons from her tree and we looked out the door and saw this gorgeous snow!  Hooray for us!!!!!  Caci is now making lemon curd from the lemons, then we'll make some lemon bars too.  YAY FOR US!

Then Brookie and Caci will be making LEMON MERINGUE PIE!!! Another Yay for us!!!!!!

Birthdays

We've had a crazy couple of weeks as a family ... and it's culminated in a couple of glorious days with us all together.  Truly glorious!  The best gift I could ever hope for on a birthday is for us all to be together.  And sitting in church ... taking up a whole middle row ... that was something I will cherish forever.  I'll write more later - just wanted to share this precious time with you.