It's the most wonderful time of the year

CHRISTMAS!!!! I love Christmas. I am one of those people that the decorations go up the second Thanksgiving is over. However I am also one of those people that the decorations come down the second Christmas is over. I love this time of year. I love the hustle bustle and all the stores. Even if all my shopping is done I like to go to the mall and people watch especially on Christmas Eve. I get this from my mom. So Saturday Eli was sweet and helped me clean the house, you can't put Christmas decorations up in a messy home. Then we out up the decorations. Aubree had a lot of fun, she wanted all the ornaments really close together but when they started falling off due to weight Eli helped her start putting them up higher. We have the Christmas candle burning, the music blaring, and all those twinkle lights on. I LOVE IT!I think it's important to show what Hayley was doing so here she is. After Eli helped Aubree, Hayley played with some toys with him. She's so sweet.

Up up in the sky

Eli's family always does a big activity on Thanksgiving. We have stayed in a house in Joshua Tree, we have gone 4-wheeling at Pizmo Beach, and this year we went hot air balloon riding. If you ever get the chance it is totally worth waking up before the farmers to go. We had the chance down in Temecula. Who knew temecula was this beautiful wine country. We thought Aubree would have just as much fun as we did, so we decided to take her with us for the ride. You don't just show up at hop in the balloon they have to fill it first. They fill it with cold air and then us the burners with fire to heat the air which causes the balloon to rise. (a little physics lesson for you). Aubree was all set to go until Eli was in the basket and I was handing her Aubree, because right then our pilot turned on a burner (which is kind of loud) and freaked her out. So Aubree ended up staying on the ground with her Grandma and Hayley. I have to say as we started to go up I got a little choked up looking down and having both girls down on the ground. I just kept praying don't let us die, don't let us die. Well drama much, because if any of you have ever gone it is very peaceful and not at all scary. The family split up into 2 baskets so we would all have some space. Here is our basket:Eli's brothers in the other basket:It was cool as the morning went on fog started to roll in it was magical. I loved it and will definantly go again.
ps this is were pilot go to retire. Most of the pilot of the hot air ballon rides are airline pilots. Ours server in the airforce and now we works for american airline. And did you know that pilots have to retire at 61. Interesting the things you learn while up up in the air.

Solids

As a weird family tradition passed on for years we thought we would let Hayley has some Thanksgiving Dinner mashed potatoes. What do you think did she like them? We thought maybe it was just a new texture and would like another bite. She obviously was not such a huge fan. We are still trying to get her to even want to eat solids at all. This was just too funny. At least we can get some food, minimal at times but some food in Aubree.

"twas the night before Thanksgiving..."

It is a family tradition in my family to have soup the night before Thanksgiving. So that is what we did. We had a few set backs, the corn chowder next worked. I tried 2 times, whatever just something I will practice. The cheese and broccoli turned out delicious. Eli's mom brought bread bowls which turned it up a notch. We also had good drinks and some salad. All in all it was a fun time. As you can tell Aubree really enjoyed it, and anything she eats this good is something we will do again.

Thanksgiving dinner take a lot of time and patience

I just love Thanksgiving. There is no other day when food is the main attraction. This year we stayed and had it with Eli's family at his Aunt Melissa's house. There is nothing greater than 8 people all trying to climb over each other is the kitchen to make dinner. We all had food assignments and were given a time to have dinner the rest was up to us. Eli and I were in charge of the rolls (rhodes), the gravy (from a jar, can't quite get it right on my own yet), and the cranberry sauce (this one I actually made from scratch). It was fun trying to accomidate everyone it the kitchen and I say this with honesty. There is nothing better than being with family and the end result is worht it.

Desert anyone?

Eli's favorite desert for Thanksgiving is a Boston Cream Pie. Well as my luck would have it, NOBODY makes them anymore. I couldn't buy one to save my life. When I was complaining to my mom about this she said, you know if it's your husband's favorite you should just learn to make it. So this year I decided to try. Did you know that Boston Cream Pie isn't a pie but really a cake? All the recipies online seemed easy enough but when Iwould read the comments people would just say how hard it was and that they had tried multiple times and never could get it to work. I was getting a little discouraged, then I found a comment that said the hard part is getting the cake to rise and she just uses a yellow cake mix. So we tried it and with a little trouble with the ganoche (just a little thick due to too much heat) it turned out pretty good. It tasted amazing, Eli has already requested one for his birhday.

Don't you just love the lights at the Temple?

Did you ever wonder how they get there? Maybe you don't care or you never really thought about it before. Well I am here to tell you that it is a lot of hard work. 2 years ago Eli and I thought it would be a good service opportunity to help put the lights on the LA temple grounds. It was a good service project, but it was a lot of work. Our Stake is assigned a couple of Olive trees on the East side of the Temple. A couple of trees you say, shouldn't take that long. It is when the director of the project keeps having you take strands down and change them. Last time it took us 4 hours to get 75% of the way done with the help of our friends the Covingtons. So when the sign up sheet went around last year there was no way I was about to do it again.

This year when the sign up sheet went around RS I felt like I should explain it as it really is not as this amazing fun thing that you can go do, and that is a lot of hard work. But when the sign up sheet went around I thought what could it hurt because this year I knew what I was getting into besides I thought that Eli would get a kick out of the protesters for Prop 8. However much to my surprise it was a lot more fun. The director was a really nice man who came over and was just having a good time with us. We took Eli's brother Luke who is taller than Eli so I think that that helped. We finished with our trees in about 2 hours. We did have some help from other members of our Stake but we got 2 trees done this time.

So if the opportunity presents itself again next year I think we might take it.
Ps. there were no protesters, it was kind of disapointing