Christmas Eve in Pictures

Aftyn's hair was done, I promise. She plays hard and quickly demolishes any kind of dainty hairstyle I endeavor.

Can you see her bump on her forehead on the right? Poor kid gave herself a little goose egg.

Being comforted by Daddy

And by Mommy

Closest man to the camera is our bishop. This was hosted at his house.

Our relief society president, here, LOVES Bronwyn.

Reed read the nativity story. Say that 5 times fast. :)

Friends from our ward

This is one of Aftyn's favorite men in our ward, Brother Towne. He earned an early spot in Aftyn's heart by being in charge of the nursery at a relief society activity and it was just my girls and him. Bronwyn is still learning to like men, but Aftyn is THRILLED anytime we see Brother Towne. He thinks she's pretty sweet too. :) We really like him AND he's from Pocatello. Small world, hmm? 

From Our Herd To Yours

                                                                     Merry Christmas!!

Blabbity blah blah blah

Christmas is coming.

I'm excited for it, because I am always

happy for moments in life when you get to celebrate.

I'm not excited to be so far away from family.

I'm excited for my two little girls who will be excited anyway,

 hopefully, since to them Christmas is exciting in and of itself.

I'm not excited because for me Christmas means memories with family.

I realized that tonight, and so Reed and I sat down

and planned out a fun filled family night.

Somehow we haven't had a Christmas themed family fun night yet this season.

I'm sure it will help. I hope it will help. I want it to help.

I wish that Christmas could just be put off

until we had enough money to fly home

and THEN we could celebrate Christmas.

Who's with me?!?  Nobody?  Aw shucks.

Well then, we'll make do and figure out how to finagle

this whole "Christmas on our own" thing.

Wish us luck.

We Just Love These Girls

I've been hugging them a little closer 

and kissing them a little more often this weekend.

Our hearts and prayers go out to the

 Newtown, Connecticut community. 

Especially to the

families of those who lost loved ones on Friday.

No Longer Bitter

I thought I should document that I'm no longer bitter.

Amazingly, in spite of wanting to dig in my heels and just stay home for a pity party,

 I went with 6 ladies from my ward to visit the big NYC.

It did incredible things for my bitterness (that was quickly vanquished

and smothered by the fun and excitement as we drove ourselves there).

And I feel like I've just gained 6 new sisters. (That's 12 for me now. Yikes!)

I'm grateful for those ladies and grateful for my ward and grateful for a Heavenly Father

who knows what I need even when I want a pity party. 

This was the side of the Macy's on 34th street. You know, from the movie "Miracle on 34th Street".

An Honestly Slightly Bitter Post

If I have to read about one more person getting to "go home" to see their family for Christmas on Facebook, I may blow a gasket. I'm completely green with envy. I really miss my family. Thanksgiving was hard, and judging by how I'm feeling on only December the 7th, well, in the next 18 days I'm going to wish approximately 1,256,982 times that I too could go home for Christmas. Thank you. That is all.

 (This all may be coming about because one of my friends is going home to Utah tomorrow with her kids and will be staying for a whole month. And everyone else who's out here for school is also going home for Christmas.)

Only 6 more days until Reed gets out of school and Christmas comes 12 days later. I'll be better when Reed's out of school and around more. He gets a month off between semesters. And yes, only one more semester to go. Remind me of that in a couple weeks when I am ready to hear it. :)

Come Up With Your Own Captions!

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