Christmas in Montana

-18 degrees (yes, negative.) That is what the thermometer read when my Dad and Ian went out to feed the cows one morning. Yikes! Last year we were in CA for Christmas basking in the balmy 50 degree weather. Despite the terribly cold temps, we had a fantastic Christmas.

There is (almost) nothing I look more forward to than Christmas Eve at Grandpa and Grandma Stott's home. My Grandma is the queen of all hostesses. The food is fabulous. I made fruit salsa with cinnamon chips and it was a hit (i.e. make this stuff)!

We have multiple traditions Christmas Eve, like the Night Before Christmas Pass Around Game, reading about the birth of the Savior and singing Christmas songs, eating trifle, and gift exchanges. The biggest hit was Uncle Jay's gift to Ian . . . a VERY dangerous foam sword:

Santa Claus sure gets around! After Meggie's horrifying experience at the mall with Santa (He said "HOHOHO!" too loud), it took a lot of coaxing to get her to sit on his lap again.

The "Aunts": Aunt Cody and Aunt Chelsea. (Inside joke. Cody's not feminine.)

Meggie and her BFF in Montana, Sophie.
Grandpa Stan. Wonderful, wonderful man.

Not so happy about having to wait to go see if Santa came (in their new princess and Transformer PJ's they opened Christmas Eve.)
Grandma got Meggie lots of "Fancy Nancy" kind of things: a pink feather boa, white gloves, tiaras, a tutu, etc.
Ian and Grandpa playing Twister, one of Ian's 5 games he got for Christmas.

Preschool Christmas Program

We've had a lot of exciting entertainment this season. However, Ian's Preschool Christmas Program was by far the most entertaining! They sang multiple songs, including Ian's favorite of "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas".

Santa Claus came, Ian told him he wanted Star Wars "Plegos"
All the boys were soldiers (Ian picked the "red" hat, much to his father's chagrin).

Meggie and her BFF, Jason. They have a crush on each other.

"He's going to need some helpers."

Traditions

We are on the countdown at the Smith home to Christmas! I love traditions, and we have quite a few. One of my favorite traditions is wrapping 25 Christmas books (we use the same ones over each year) and then the kids "open a present" each night in December and we read the book. The kids LOVE it. Aunt Karrie gave us that great idea. Our final book (on Christmas Eve) is "I Believe in Santa Claus". It is incredible. It totally makes the connection between Santa and the true meaning of Christmas. It talks about the symbols of Christmas. We have a little box that we pull out our little symbols and discuss each one. Really, if you have kids, get this book.

Another tradition is the gingerbread house. I had these great ambitions this year to make a gingerbread house from scratch, but then my senses got the best of me and I bought one from Costco. The kids got to decorate with their cousin, Holden, in town from Chicago.






In other news, I have been doing really fun things lately like washing the walls and cleaning out cupboards. Am I a clean freak, you ask? No. My husband doesn't like me to shop for Christmas without him. I know, crazy man. So, while all of you are out there shopping to your heart's content, I am home cleaning, until Kevin has some time to go shopping with me. Hmmmm . . . maybe the refrigerator today . . . yuck.

Granny Betty Rose

Kevin Grandma Betty Rose passed away Thanksgiving morning. My mother put it best when she said that on her handful of encounters with Granny, she found her to be so elegant and kind. She welcomed me warmly into the family when Kevin and I were married. We love you, Granny! She was 86 years old.

Kevin's brother, Jason, made this incredible program for her services.

Why we love Aunt Wendy . . .

A few months ago my sister-in-law Wendy asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I, (knowing that Wendy is the queen of all shoppers) told her that I wanted clothes . . . for Meggie. Boy, did she ever deliver! Check out these incredibly cute outfits, with and this incredibly proud little girl. Thanks Aunt Wendy!!!

Glimpse of and older girl

Do you eve see a picture of your child and get a glimpse of what he or she is going to look like when she is an adult? That is the first thing I thought of when I saw this picture. My darling, little darling "grown up" baby.

Marathon Halloween (a very late post)

We had 5 Halloween party/events this year. Yes, five. Ian had a very difficult time deciding what to be, so mom had to go to the store without him and "surprise" him with a $12 costume from Walmart.

I made Meggie a witch skirt (in my new craft room . . . smile), which she wore multiple times. She couldn't decide if she wanted to be a "mean witch" or a "nice witch". I personally liked her as a "mean witch", she would scrunch up her little face and try to say in her raspiest little voice "I'm a MEAN witch"!

Our festivities included:

Ian's Preschool Party

Meggie's Dance Party

Kevin's work Halloween Party

Our Church Halloween Trunk or Treat

Our Neighbor and good friend's, the Humeniuk's party

And finally, Trick or Treating

Whew!

The kids had a blast, but my main disappointment is that I think because my kids are so young that everyone gives them the "little" candy. (i.e. I have nothing to eat at my house except for smarties, dum dums and fruit flavored tootsie rolls. Come on people! The mothers of small children need chocolate, too! Where are my snickers and twix???)

Slave Labor

We bought our home last summer and I was totally in love with every inch of it (still am). This is where I want to live forever, well, at least until we are too old to walk upstairs and need to buy a rambler. Anyway, the only time in the past year that I have been cursing our house is the Fall. Seriously, CURSING. We have a ginormous amount of trees in our yard with an even more ginormous amount of leaves. It takes us forever to rake. So, this year I decided that I would enlist the help of some little leaf elves to help us clean up.

Make this for dinner

I have recently been re-introduced to the pioneer woman. I know, I know, it sounds totally mormon. But really, she doesn't even live in Utah. She is fantastic! Very classy and hilarious. I made this for dinner last night and we all about died with how over the top it was. (Kevin is adoring me, which we all know that is the goal, to make our husbands so madly in love with us and our cooking that they are completely wrapped around our little finger.) I wanted to just put the sauce in a cup and drink it. I "tested" the sauce with little "tastes" no less than 987 times.

Anyway, I followed this recipe to a "T" minus two points: I didn't have crushed tomatoes, so I used Italian style stewed tomatoes and pureed them in my food processor (blender would work fine). Also, for the wine, I used chicken broth plus 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/10/chicken-parmigiana/

We are having some friends over for the football game tomorrow and I am making another one of her recipes: Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeno Thingies. Love the title! With only three ingredients, all of which I love, I can't imagine them being bad, unless of course I burn them.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/07/bacon-wrapped_j/

Dave and Carol's Big Adventure

Kevin's parents, my beloved in-laws, have been on a 5 week trek across the nation. They have sent all of their grandchildren postcards from every significant stop along the way. I hung up a string over our mantle and we have been clothes-pinning each card we get. It's like we've been on the big adventure with them the whole way! To date (and I think we have them all) we have close to 20 postcards. Everywhere from Las Vegas to Washington D.C., Graceland to Arches. It has been so fun reading all the postcards. Ian was in charge of the sharing bag in Preschool and decided to take 3 of the postcards: Mount Rushmore, the Statue of Liberty, and the Liberty Bell. (He would've taken them all, but I had to put a little limit on him!) These pictures are from about 2 weeks into their vacation:

Viva LV!

I surprised Kevin over the weekend with his Birthday trip to Las Vegas. It was fabulous! He had no idea. I had to weave the biggest web of lies to make sure he didn't find out. I showed up at his work on Friday morning around 9 am and whisked him away!

I told him that he was in charge all weekend. So, of course, the first stop was in St. George for lunch at Outback (then I got some shopping in :). We traveled on to Las Vegas, stayed at the Hilton (which has been totally remodeled and is gorgeous). Then, yup, we transformed into 60 year olds and went to the Barry Manilow concert. (I was named after the song "Mandy", just in case you were wondering.) The concert was completely cheesy, which made it supremely entertaining and hilarious. Saturday morning, we woke up and went to Hoover Dam, then shopping. Then, we again transformed into 60 year olds, and went to dinner at the Bellagio Buffet at 3:30 in the afternoon. Oh yum! ( we were even more pathetic, when we just paid the lunch price, but stayed long enough to get all the dinner items.)

After gaining 10 lbs at the Bellagio, we met up with our good friends, the Cox's, at the BYU v. UNLV game. Great game, great conversation, great friends. It was fantastic!