Holidays Galore

So I am FINALLY posting about the recent holidays (and it's going to be a looong one). I have had a really hard time getting back to the swing of things this year. Maybe it was becuase I had a week and a half off of work (not all consecutive days, but still really nice). The last few weeks have been great! Very relaxing. Some well deserved and very much needed R&R. I can't say that I did a lot, but I did check some things off of my to do list. Recap of the last two weeks.

Christmas

I only worked half a day on Christmas Eve. We went over to my mom's about 3 to help cook dinner. We ate the ham we forgot about on Thanksgiving (Ha!) and other good food.

My mom is always taking pictures and while we might get annoyed at the time I am always glad after the fact that I have so many wonderful pictures to chose from. Thanks mom!

Then we opened gifts and visited. Below is a picture frame collage that I made for my mom and Tracy.Ariana sporting the necklace I made for her and the sweater Cody bought her. I made one for my mom too (non-metal so she could wear it because she is alergic to metals) but I didn't get a picture.
Christmas Eve family photo. And of course Oliver always has to be in our family photos. We are a good looking family if I do say so myself.

After our visit to my mom's house we met up with Chad's family and looked at Christmas lights. That was short lived...everyone was tired...so we headed back to Chad's parents house. Everyone finished their last minute wrapping (in my husbands case...he wrapped all of his gifts that night...slacker). Then the kids went to bed and us adults put out all the "santa" gifts. Then we visited and took naps (Ok, maybe I just took a nap on the couch because I was tired) and went to bed. Even though I am married and an "adult" doesn't mean Christmas morning isn't still exciting. It was fun waking up early and opening gifts with the Bringhurst's. We always open a gift at a time (for the most part, by the end the order is somewhat lost) so we can see each gift and what everyone got. I love this tradition. It makes it last longer and its just fun.

Katie opening gifts:

Jills Family Christmas morning:

Isn't this an excited face? Even Oliver loved Christmas morning. He got a new Christmas colored rope to chew to his hearts content.

Chad and I also got some great gifts this year!
Chad got me the CD's on the left and becca (Chad's youngest sister) got me the brush set.

I love practical kitchen gifts. Those are usually the things that we don't buy during the year because they aren't a necessity. Chad's parents bought us the pictured Wok. Now I can stir fry without making an absolute mess! My mom got us the kitchen utensils which we were in desperate need of. Not only does your silverware tend to get lost over the years but it also gets damaged in the garbage disposal...people named Clair tend to do this a lot. And my sister Nichole got me the yummy scone mix pictured. Sadly I haven't yet tried it out, but I will!

I got Chad some new dress shirts. He loved them! Yay. I was worried because he is picky about dress shirts.

My mom also got me a new temple bag. Actually I have never had one...so my first temple bag.

And this was my favorite gift! Kudos go to my husband for the great Black Friday find. Isn't it beautiful? It still doesn't fit all of my necklaces, but I doubt I will ever find one that will.

Chad's mom made us some more awesome holiday decor for our home.

His mom also made us this sign for our home.

And Chad's sister Jill got us this framed picture of the Oakland Temple. We have been wanting to get one and now we don't have to!

Lastly Chad's 2nd favorite gift was this tool set his parents got for him. He has been wanting drill bits for a while.
His favorite gift(I am saying this, not him) sadly didn't make it under the tree because I ordered it late. He just got it yesterday. If you know Chad, you know he would love this!

Late Christmas night Chad, Ariana and I headed up to my dad's cabin. We got there late that night. The next day we went snowmobiling in the morning and then later a bunch of family came up to the cabin.

Ariana had fun in the snow...
And sucking on icicles...

My cousin Travis, Ariana, Kelsey (Cody's girlfriend), Cody and Emily (Travis' gf).

Me, Oliver and Mia (My Aunt Debbie's minature dachsund). Funny story...we forgot Oliver's bed and cage at home so he had nowhere to sleep. Well my Aunt Debbie brought up Mia's bed with her on Saturday. They all got there while we were out snowmobiling so I wasn't there. But aparantly Oliver's bed and Mia's are the exact same doggie bed. So Oliver kept laying down in Mia's bed because he thought it was his (that we left at home). Mia doesn't like this. So they are fighting over the bed. My Aunt Debbie had no idea they had the same bed. It was pretty funny. But the two dogs do really get along great.

All of our extended family left that same day but we stayed a second night. The next morning we woke up to fresh snow. We got about 6 inches as you can see in the picture below.

It felt like Utah. But it was nice to be able to play in it for a day and then leave!

Group picture. This was the first time we met Cody's gf Kelsey. She is very nice and her and Cody are great together. We are very happy they found each other.

During one of our snowmobiling breaks Ariana decided to make a snow angel.

Cody and Kelsey again on a break from our snowmobiling trip.

Chad and I posing.

We had so much fun at the cabin as usual! We were especially glad that Ariana came with us. She entertained Oliver on the ride there and back. As you can see they both fell asleep on the ride home. It was a long and tiring trip for human and pet alike.

New Years

We had a low key New Years Eve. We stopped by my mom's earlier in the day and I managed to remember to take pistures! Its a miracle. Doesn't Ariana look so cute with her curls? She is so grown up!

Then we went to dinner that night with Chad's family at Paper Moon- the only Chinese food restaurant I will eat at.

Then we went to a New Year's Eve party at our friends Paul & Elizabeth's house. No pictures though.

Lastly ( I'm almost done...I promise!) we saw Avatar on Saturday. We saw Alvin and the Chipmunks first and then Avatar. Both were good but Avatar definitely beat Alvin by multiple stars. I wasn't terribly interested in seeing it. I had hear it was good and so I figured why not? It far exeeded my expectations. The cast was awesome. I LOVE Sam Worthington who plays the main character. He is also recently in Terminator Salvation. He is really awesome in this movie but so is everyone else. It did have some swearing which annoyed me but you can't have everything can you? Go see it!