Relief Society Christmas Party

Last summer I was put on the committee that plans the activities for the women in our church group.

For Christmas we always do a nice, fancy dinner.

This year we planned the theme around the picture book "Why Christmas Trees Aren't Perfect".

Another group had already strung the lights overhead for their party the following night and even though they didn't quite match our warmer toned lights, I think they still added to the ambiance.

We had made a little handout with a Christmas tree ornament attached for each of the ladies to take home.

The committee chair had a bunch of old branches in her yard that she and her husband cut up to make the centerpieces.  I think they turned out fantastic!  When I heard that she was just going to throw them away afterward, I asked if I could snag them instead.  Andy was super kind and let me store them away in the shed.  I'm sure they'll come in handy sometime :)

For dinner we served some type of chicken we got from Sam's (I didn't pay much attention to the meat), mashed potatoes, rolls, salad from Firehouse and I was in charge of roasting the green beans.

For dessert we ordered a bunch of different, beautiful cakes from a lady here in the valley that sells them for a very reasonable price.  They were really lovely!

And then for our program we briefly went through a few of our new Christmas hymns that have been added recently, had someone read the book while sitting in a rocking chair :) and then had a speaker that tied it all together.

It was a lot of work but I think it ended up being a really nice evening.

In fact, one sweet friend came up to me afterward and told me how much she enjoyed it and concluded by saying, "I've never been to a Relief Society activity like this before"... I know she's been to Christmas dinners before so I guess she meant it was extra special :)

We only had about half the people come that we were prepared for but, oh well, what do you do?

November Odds and Ends

 Abby and I took Mom to Wicked for her birthday like we had done last year.

It was fun but I was super disappointed in some of the content.  With a PG rating I thought we were safe but Mom and I both ended up quite shocked.

        

        

         

A shot of our sweet guy waiting at the window one Sunday afternoon for Bapa and O to come.

Falling asleep while waiting is not uncommon for him :)

For about a year I have belonged to a cute book group that started as a C.S. Lewis group but has since branched out to other inspirational books.

This was our November gathering where we did a book exchange.

Northern lights from our back porch one evening.

I was getting texts from multiple people all at once to go check them out.

They were not nearly as visible without the camera lens.

CTR Cookies

I was asked to do some baptism cookies for early December.

I decided to get them ready a couple of weeks early to ease the December load.

The grandma (who is my trainer at the gym...she's a very youthful grandma :)

was the one that asked me to do them and it was because their regular cookie lady was unable to do them at the time.  She kept showing me pictures of what they usually order and they were things that I know I am not good at or love doing so I asked if I could do something similar to the ones I did the month before.

She said she would talk to her daughter.

When she got back to me she said her daughter liked my October set so we just changed the color pallette.

Thanksgiving 2025

We celebrated Thanksgiving in Park City this year.

These pictures reminded me of ones I took about 17 years ago with Abby as a little girl making rolls with Nancy for Thanksgiving dinner.

Gathering for the meal...

The Kids' table :)

Ben pointing to his picture of Jesus he had stolen from somewhere in the house.

I'm not sure of the sequence of the rest of the events that weekend but here are some pictures of other happenings :)

The older girl cousins played with air dry clay...very reminiscent of earlier days.

Ben went and inserted himself between the Andrus girls who were in the front room working on their computers.  He made himself right at home.

Andy and Dave and Me and Lynn

Josh had to go back home to work but Matt was able to go with the Andrus clan to the BYU game.

Ben was grinning big for me one evening...

I can't remember why we needed Ben go somewhere but he wouldn't move so Andy just moved his chair.

A good old fashioned game of Bingo...

Jenny caught the guys having a serious discussion :)

On Sunday, Ben made himself Hailee's buddy again...

Before we left, Nancy was having her children go through a bunch of old papers to see what they wanted to keep.  It ended up being a hilarious moment :)