Christmas 2014

Before we left for home from Arizona, we had a girls night at the Nutcracker Ballet in Chandler. Grace was, of course, mesmerized the whole time, as was I. After experiencing this show, she frequently comments about how she wants to "dance with a prince someday, too."

One of the major highlights of the month of December was Matt and Jessica's wedding. I don't have a single picture to show for it except for these pretty snow covered trees filled with red holly berries outside the Bountiful temple where Jessica received her endowments the night before the sealing. We had all nine of Mom and Dad Andersen's children plus a few spouses under our roof that night. It was so fun and only a little stressful, as I was hosting the wedding dinner and everyone in our home. It was a beautiful ceremony in the Salt Lake temple with Dad getting to perform the sealing.

Two days before Christmas, we finally toured temple square to see the Christmas lights. We first ate dinner at the Citycreek food court which was totally PACKED with families celebrating the season. After the lights, we had to stop into Deseret Book to play with this year's Christmas window display-- a candy cane factory.

Christmas Eve felt so quiet after having so much family in town for Matt's wedding. We had our usual candle-lit humble supper of soup and bread. This year, Kathryn got to play Baby Jesus in our Nativity play. Grace and Kade were Mary and Joseph and I was the Angel Gabriel. It wasn't a rousing success, but we made a memory of it.

Christmas morning the kids were excited to find Santa had visited and left them a new sled. We tested it out in our front yard.

There's one major advantage to living on a hill--we don't have to go farther than our front yard to find a good sledding hill.

Kade played with his new train set all day, and oddly enough, Grace's favorite toy was this silly blow-up banana her kindergarten teacher gave her. I think it was from a Dole marketer.

Kathryn seemed to enjoy her first Christmas as she observed all the hysteria of her older sister and brother.

Grace got a new outfit that she has insisted on wearing every day since then.

Neil had over a week off from the office and it was Heaven! The kids loved our slow mornings of reading and playing with dad.

 Also, whenever Neil has that much time off, he has just enough time to look around the house and find a project to do. Thus, he tore the tile out of his office and we replaced it and the carpet in two other bedrooms with new carpet. It's so much warmer now!