December Update

I feel like it must have been December forever! We have done so much in just a few weeks!

Here is a quick update:

We finished our garage last year and are finally putting it to good use. We love having our friends over and having a place just for the kids to play. Here are the before pictures:

typical unfinished garage (and little Ashlyn)

Jason painting the garage

We had a wall put in to separate the kids side from the storage side. Here is the storage side... almost a year ago...when it was first done... you don't want to see it now! Not so clean and organized anymore!

I haven't taken any "after" pictures of the kids side because I still feel like it is a work in progress, but here it is full of kids! The garage has been put to good use this month!

We spent some time out at the Ranch riding dirt bikes and had friends over to watch a football game.

Ashlyn and Jason spent some time fixing the kids computer

I got strep throat for week.

We survived planning another ward party. We decided to have a more casual morning party so we weren't competing with all of the evening December activities. We had breakfast with Santa and had the ward come in their jammies. The event actually went really well and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. We were just so happy to have made it through! (The person assigned to get in touch with Santa still had not the day before the party! Luckily, a new committee member had a jolly disposition and was willing to help out.)

Here are the girls with Santa

Jessica

Lauren

Here was Ashlyn's reaction to Santa! ... classicShe wanted nothing to do with Santa. She later told me that she didn't like Santa and she didn't want him to come to her house!

Our book club took a break over the summer and had a hard time getting started again in the fall. Jen finally got us all together and we are excited to start reading again and getting together for our monthly lunch and discussion group.

We went to the BYU vs Fresno State basketball game

We had planned on just going with the adults, but the boys REALLY wanted to go, so we brought them along. It was fun to see them so excited about the game. I can't believe how fast they are growing up!
Garrett, Zack, Austin

We decorated for Christmas. Jason had a work party. I went to an ornament exchange party. the kids had class parties, Christmas performances and secret Santa. We went to Jen's annual Christmas party (post to come). Caught a mouse in the garage!!! (Keep your fingers crossed for the post to come! It's Jason's story and we will see if I can get him to post. It's too funny to miss!) Austin and Jessica started playing basketball. Busy, busy, busy....