Christmas Morning!!

I found the angel, now where's Mary?

I like to collect Nativity Scenes and thanks to some great gifts each year from my sister-in-laws and my mom I've got a good little collection going. I try to get a new one each year even if it's just a small one.



Well this year there has been one character in particular who has been quite popular. Can you guess?



Yep, it's Mary. (This one looks pretty good considering Roman sent her flying with a sword) London is very interested in her, not because she's a girl, but because she is pregnant. London is OBSESSED with pregnancy. She makes me watch that TLC show, A Baby Story, all the time. She is constantly shoving towels up her and Roman's shirts to make them look pregnant. Pretty much if she ever hears the word she's all ears. But the funny thing is, is that she doesn't care for the finished product AT ALL. As soon as they give birth on The Baby Story, she tells me she is through watching it. When I bring up the idea of having another baby she just tells me that they are loud and they cry all the time and if I bring another home she will just go up to her room and lock the door. Which is probably why I find the Manger Scenes looking like this a lot.


Marys on one side.


And the baby Jesus' lined up and off by themselves somewhere.


One time I found this and I thought that was pretty funny too.






Her and the other little girls in Primary got to dress up as angels for the Nativity Scene at the ward party and she was super excited for that. They all looked so cute and had tons of fun spreading their angel dust around......and speaking of angel dust, we all know these right?



I always thought they were okay, but nothing great. I could take or leave them. If I'm going to indulge in a treat I usually want it homemade and involving chocolate somehow, but I read on a friend's blog about how her mom used to buy these when she was younger and put them in the freezer for all the kids to have as an after school snack. I thought I'd buy a bag and maybe London and Roman would like them frozen too, but I did sneak a frozen one for myself and it was soooo super good. I highly recommend it once all of the hundreds of plates of Christmas cookies lying around everyone's kitchen are gone. Happy Holidays!

Spain Table

We had this fabulous dinner for our Relief Society and the theme was Christmas Around the World. Each table was decorated like a different country and I signed up to do Spain since Tim served his mission there and we have lots of cool stuff. All the tables looked so beautiful and I was really bummed that I had forgotten my camera so I decided to recreate the Spain table at our house. And since the table looked so great I HAD to cook the cuisine to go with it. We had our appetizer platter of manchego cheese, kalamata olives, breads, and of course the meats of salchichon, jamon serrano, and chorizo cantimpalo. Then there was the tomato salad and last but not least lentil bean soup that cooked all day and made my house smell so great. If you've never had lentil bean soup there is a fabulous recipe on allrecipes.com under sausage lentil soup and be sure to add a splash of balsamic vinegar to your bowl before eating. It adds a great zip.

So here's the table





Here's the appetizer platter



Here's me and my little sous chef in our matching aprons.


And pretty much every time I turned around this little dude was digging this bowl out of the cupboard and putting it on his head. I thought it was a great contribution. :)

Teddy Bear Toss!

We are regulars at the Wrangler's hockey games here in town. We have been big hockey fans ever since we lived in Boise and my Canadian brother-in-law got us hooked on it. Every year at Christmas time the Wranglers host a teddy bear toss. The fans bring teddy bears and as soon as the Wranglers score their first goal everyone tosses the bears onto the ice. The players round them all up real fast and then the bears are given to needy children in the area. What a great idea!! Don't you just love how Christmastime is full of opportunities to give like this? I'm also grateful to other programs like Toys for Tots, Letters to Santa, and Giving Trees so that even if you may not know anyone in need you still can give to them amongst all your other shopping. Sprout T.V. does this really cute thing where you can go online and choose a book and some jammies for certain kids. There's also this great thing here called Baby's Bounty. My New Year's resolution is to donate to them monthly. What they do is pack diaper bags full of all sorts of baby stuff and give it to the mother's here in Vegas who really need them. But EVERYTHING has to be new, even the diaper bags, and each diaper bag has to be a certain size and contain a certain amount of all the necessary goods. I guess they spend hours and hours putting diaper bags together each week. Right now I can't really volunteer to put the bags together (although I think that sounds super fun) but I can pick up an item each time I'm at Wal-mart. Anyway, we had a great time tossing our bears (we actually threw a zebra and a giraffe) and since Tim's company is now the official sponsor of the Wrangler's they had a company deal where we all got to sit in the ice box right up next to the glass and eat some goodies. The players smashed into the glass so hard that they spilled all the drinks of the table next to us. But it was fun being that close!