Christmas 2010



Four Generation photo



Christmas was great! Since both of our families are in Boise we get to see them both for the holidays. We even got to see Tiffany, Adam and Rock who came from Texas and Jason and Grace moved to Nampa so they were there too! We started at the Laney's and spent about a week and a half there. The boys (Gary, Todd and Adam) went to the Las Vegas bowl to see Boise State play. Of course, we won!

TJ's favorite present, the Exersaucer



TJ missed his first Christmas morning. He was taking a nap, of course. While we were at the in-laws, Rock and TJ were on opposite schedules. Rock woke up early, 5 a.m. (6 a.m. Texas time) and played until about 7:30 and that's when TJ would wake up for the first time. TJ would stay awake for about 2 hours and sleep again and Rock would wake up from his nap. We wanted to take a ton of pictures with the two boys, but they hardly ever saw each other. But we made sure they matched, just about every day. We got a few photos in though. We ate a lot of food and too many sweets, but that's what makes Christmas, right!?

Todd also helped teach Cali how to shoot her shotgun. They were throwing clay pigeons. Cali needed a break and they asked if I wanted to shoot. I said, "Sure why not!" I pulled the gun up and closed one eye (the wrong one) and I was like, "I can't see down the barrel of the gun! Wait! How do you do this?" Then I figured out it was the wrong eye. :) My bad. I hit all of them but like 2, doing much better than Cali was doing. I felt bad. They kept asking me what I did and how I aimed and where I put the gun and I just said, "I just point and shoot. I don't really think about it." I probably shouldn't have even shot because it made Cali a little bummed.



Todd's side on TJ's blessing day



We blessed TJ (finally). He was about 3 months when we did it. We waited because we knew everyone would be in town for it. It was beautiful and special. He wore Todd's baby blessing outfit (made by Calista), I added a vest and bow tie and my mom made a blessing blanket. It was a wonderful day!

At the Steelhead's game

At my family's house, we played a lot of games. My dad won a XBOX360 with Kinect and we played that a lot. I got so sore from dancing and doing track and field. Kristin, Jason, my dad and I went to an Idaho Steelhead's game. I've only been to one other hockey game I think and I don't remember it at all. My dad was explaining a few of the terms like "power play" and such. Kristin really liked it when they broke into a fight! She was thrilled that it was "allowed" for the most part, at least much more than football. She added something else to her bucket list, "Have 2 boys fight over me." It was nice to have a night out while TJ was home with Todd and my mom.

We were away from home for about 3 weeks. We left home and TJ was 3 months and got back and he was 4 months. Crazy! He has definitely changed a lot since the last time I posted. It's been about 2 1/2 months, my bad. I'll do a separate post about all the fun things he does now.

Overall, Christmas was fun and definitely a vacation from school and Salt Lake. Don't get me wrong SLC is great but it's just not Rexburg, or anything like Rexburg...at all. I don't care that the headquarters of the Church are here. Our ward is about 900 members, but only about 150 attend. We have 10 or 11 couples of Church service missionaries in our ward because there are not enough Priesthood holders for leadership or enough stable, non-transient, righteous people for major callings. It is a nearly dead ward. Not newly wed, nearly dead, just nearly dead. Well, there are about, let me count, like 5 couples our age with a little kid or just married, but we just got 2 more which is nice. On Sunday we had a combined meeting with the Priesthood and talked about home and visiting teaching. There are not very many women who can visit teach. It's not like in normal wards where if you are in R.S. you are automatically a V.T. All the older women teach each other because many of them can't leave their apartment complex. They have about 98% V.T. each month. Outside of that complex, there are 24 visiting teachers. 12 companionships for 214 other sisters. That's NUTS! I'm one of those girls and it's crazy. We have 9 homeowners and about 30 (that's probably pushing it) cars in the parking lot for our whole ward. Everyone uses public transportation or walks. They don't have cars. One week they asks for sisters to work at the cannery and many wanted too but none of them had transportation to get there. One sister who couldn't help out, said she could at least drive all the ladies to the cannery and back. There is 1 deacon, 1 priest and 1 miamaid. Pretty sure that's all the youth. Anyway...I wasn't planning on ranting and raving about our ward, but ... oh well.

Other sweet pictures: